


Slow Fall

by Azellma



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:07:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 75
Words: 69,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6501904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azellma/pseuds/Azellma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A meandering exploration of the Blackwall/Inquisitor relationship, and the many ways in which she confounds him.</p>
<p>Contains spoilers. Also angst. Maker, SO much angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Who sent you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I am late to Inquisition, and late to Blackwall as a favourite character. Having only just played past THAT THING THAT HAPPENS, and discovering the utter ANGST that is Blackwall, I was overcome, and (sorry, Lavellan) had to send a low-level alt to the sacrificial altar. I am, shall we say, won over. 
> 
> This fic stands at 14k currently and has a long way to go, so long as I don't lose momentum. Chapters vary in length. It contains both in-game and additional scenes. In-game scenes involve game dialogue, but I've taken a few liberties when it suited me. 
> 
> No doubt my wordcount will slow down as my game progress does, but I wanted to start posting something. Apologies for any tense issues, or anything like incorrect word usage - I've tried to keep all the slang and curses world-specific and so on, but you know how brains are when you're writing. Something may have slipped in that I haven't noticed.

He's tense with the knowledge of upcoming battle, tense for the boys he has trained best he could. A life-skill for them, if they keep it up and train with each other and any other man who will teach them. And the pride of knowing they had saved themselves. This is the best gift he can give them.

He's tense as he prepares them, and when the name _Blackwall_ rings through the air his head snaps around in shock. _Who would know that name?_

He sees only her to begin with, an elf with dark hair, and with rising panic demands “How do you know my name? Who sent you?”

But then a sixth sense whispers, and he raises his shield fast enough to catch an arrow that was meant for her.

First things first. Whoever she is, and the little band she has with her, they'll have to show their mettle. He'll deal with the fallout afterwards.

The bandits are nothing, easily dispatched. One of the boys falls, and Blackwall crouches at his side. It's not right, but nothing in this world ever could be. The others survive, and they've earned their victory.

He sends the boys on their way, too unsettled by his audience to really let himself feel pride for them and how they'd fought. He's been playing at Warden for a long time now, long enough that it's almost second nature, but she had asked for Blackwall and he's terrified to discover how much she knows.

Then he takes a good, solid look at the people who have tracked him down.

He's taken aback. They're a small group, only four, a dwarf and an elf and a damned Qunari. And the one who had hailed him: a dalish elf, her face etched with fine blue lines, framing eyes of azure. His surprise at the strange gaggle settles him, almost, and he shifts on his feet.

“How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“An agent of the Inquisition,” she says, and explains why she has come.

It shakes him, to hear her ask if the Wardens' disappearance and the Divine's death are connected. He can't even fathom a Warden... no, it wouldn't happen. He says as much. “Our purpose isn't political.” And, thank the Maker, she knows next to nothing about the Wardens or why they might have left. He doesn't know where they might have gone either, and tells her so, biting the inside of his lip when she rolls her eyes in frustration and sighs.

“Well, Warden Blackwall. Where does that leave us?” she asks, and moves to leave. It's odd to be left with a question; rhetorical or not it stirs something in him. Was it an invitation? Well, _could_ he be more use in the Inquisition than he is wandering the wilderness and helping farmers take down bandits?

It's then that he catches sight of the mark on her hand, and he turns to gaze at the far-off Breach in the sky.

The bloody Herald of Andraste.

He'd heard the stories, well enough. They haven't been spread long enough to become muddled, but they sound ridiculous, even so. Stepping out of the Fade with Andraste herself behind her? Blackwall has some vague faith, resting at the core of which, now, is the eternal understanding that he deserves no forgiveness. Not from man nor Maker. So he does not ask for it. He attends no Chantry services, makes no prayers. He avoids the Maker, out of respect.

But perhaps he can serve, nonetheless. Serve the people. Serve the Herald of Andraste.

“Inquisition! - Agent, you say? Hold a moment...”

 


	2. She kept the Elven gods

She had welcomed him on board, and taken him along with her to see his strengths. He is giddy, at first. To be actually _doing_ something, something worthwhile, for the first time since... Maker, had he _ever_ done something worthwhile?

Yet here he is, standing in a place of pilgrimage, surrounded by enthusiastic raw recruits; frightened faithful; people drawn here like moths to the green flame on her hand.

The first time he'd seen her close a rift had stopped the breath in his throat. He'd seen magic before, of course – hells, he'd seen _her_ cast it, and many others besides. But this was something else. The line of green light stretching from her to the seething mass in the air, the pause as she took hold of it somehow, the wrench as she jerked it closed. It was remarkable.

Saving people and closing rifts. He can see why people follow her. What else could it be but a gift from the Maker?

He doesn't think too hard about that, unsure whether he wants it to be true, and not altogether willing to believe in something so extraordinary. He had asked her, as they neared Haven, whether she had truly been saved by Andraste.

She didn't believe in the Maker, she had told him. She kept the Elven gods. But she couldn't remember what had happened to her at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. For all she knew, she _had_ been saved by Andraste.

The question had made her pensive and sad, so he had asked her inner circle about it instead. About what had happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Most just shrugged. Cassandra and Varric knew the most, and both spoke with the same helpless sadness the Herald had. Solas had been there, too, of course, when they first tried to close the breach, and word said he knew more about it than most. But there was something about the man's nature that rubbed Blackwall the wrong way. Spent too long in the fade, if he had to guess. Damn mage thought he knew every bloody thing. So he hadn't asked him.

Now he stands at the blacksmith's cottage, the ringing of steel a familiar comfort, and gazes up at the Breach.

He feels her approach, almost. Only the softest crunch of boots on snow.

“It's so much easier to ignore from far away,” he says to her, humbled by the terrifying power of it. Of _her._ “And you walked out of it.”

She blows that off, says she was saved by the Inquisition soldiers, and he smirks.

“That's not what I've heard,” he says, testing, probing. “But I have to admit, I thought you'd be...”

“Human?”

On reflection, he can't work out why. The Andraste part, probably. Why would a Dalish elf be helped by Andraste? But now it seems impossible for it to have been anyone else. Maybe the Herald being an elf – and a mage, at that – is all a part of the Maker's plan.

She is pleasant to speak to, he discovers. Quiet, the sort of listener who takes one's words into her chest and keeps them. He has to remind himself that the air of acceptance she carries like a halo around with her isn't meant for him. That she'd never accept him, if she knew. No. She's too sweet and good.

But she will never know. And he smiles at her.

 


	3. "Too Bloody Good"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall gets to know the gang.

Their missions can take days, even weeks. The entire group of them will go out into the world, and then, when they've made camp, she will pick three of their number and go off to hunt rifts. The others will stay around camp, helping out the Inquisition soldiers and resting, if need be.

Blackwall gets to know them, and learns where they stand in the Herald's favour.

She does not trust Vivienne. She prefers to venture forth with rogues and warriors than add another mage to the group, but when she does, she chooses Solas, not Vivienne. A beautiful creature the woman may be, but Blackwall does not blame the Herald for her mistrust. The First Enchanter's views on mages don't exactly line up with those of a Dalish elf. _He_ doesn't trust the woman, and he's not an apostate.

Solas is a strange one. His conversations with the Herald always seem to be about the Fade, and Blackwall still can't work out whether or not they're friends.

She gets on well with Cassandra, despite the difference in their outlooks. They respect and trust each other enough for that. She trusts the Iron Bull, too, though he is a confessed spy, and depends upon him often as her self-described “front-line body guard”. He's bloody big enough, at any rate. And an easy person to get along with. Just a bit too curious for Blackwall's taste.

Varric, the odd dwarf with the quick fingers and the sharp eye, might be the closest to her. The Herald has a deep fondness for him as her “fellow prisoner”. She goes to him often for guidance, nearly always takes him along with her, and listens, rapt, to his stories. She tracks down copies of his novels – apparently books are hard to come by in Dalish clans – and devours them.

Occasionally, a new person will join their ranks. Not long after Blackwall finds himself among the Herald's inner circle, a small elf called Sera turns up. She is... well, a bit mad. He doesn't know how to respond to the girl. The Herald finds her delightful, however, so he bites his tongue.

Sera never seems to bite her own. She glares at him across the camp-fire one night, eyes narrowed, and accuses him of being too bloody _good_ by half.

He doesn't know how to respond to that. The Herald chuckles, and punches Sera in the arm.

“Leave him alone, Sera,” she says with a grin.

The other elf wrinkles her nose. “I don't know – He's just too _good_ , you know? All honour this and duty that, blah blah. Relax, you know? _Really_ want to get him out of that armour.” She blinks, and adds quickly, “Not like that.”

“Speak for yourself,” the Herald replies, and laughs at Sera's face. “No, honestly! That gambeson leaves _far_ too much to the imagination.”

“Hmmph. I wonder if he's that hairy all over?” Sera grimaces, and pokes out her tongue. “ _I'm_ more interested in finding out what female Qunari look like.” She stares into the campfire. “Can you imagine? _Woof!_ ”

Blackwall has become very uncomfortable with this conversation.

“If you don't mind, ladies...” he clears his throat, “I'm... going to go and check on the soldiers on guard duty.”

“See what I mean?” Sera says as he leaves. “He isn't real. Too fucking _good_.”

The Herald finds him later, polishing his sword.*

“I hope we didn't make you feel uncomfortable back there,” she says, seating herself on the earth beside him with a soft smile.

He sets his work aside and straightens. “Not at all, my lady,” he tells her.

She runs a hand through her hair, and watches as the strands fall from her fingers. “It's just – I'm aware I have a... a certain status, as the Herald. I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable around me, or unable to tell me if something was wrong.” She looks up at him then, her eyes large and blue in the soft evening light. “I never want anyone to feel like they have to lie to me. If I _do_ make you uncomfortable, tell me. Please.”

He forces a smile. “You never have to worry about that, my lady.”

She smiles back, and gets to her feet. “I'm glad,” she says. “I'll leave you to your work.”

Blackwall picks up his sword again, and runs his whetstone along its edge, thoughtful.

_Liar_ , he thinks to himself.

Sera is wrong. The Herald's the good person here, not him. And that is why he _must_ lie to her; she would not let him serve the Inquisition if she knew the truth. She would throw him out, at best. Execute him, at worst. _Not as though I don't deserve it_ , he thinks.

Still, it was sweet of her to come and make sure he wasn't some blushing maiden. _Make him uncomfortable_ , Andraste, as if he'd ever mind that, coming from a woman like her! Was there a hint of violet in those eyes of hers? Beautiful. Like the night sky come to earth.

He angles his blade so he can see his face mirrored in its surface, and sees that he is smiling.  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *NOT like that. - Ed.


	4. Particular Talents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That really great part where you get to flirt ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

She flirts with him.

He's been alone for a long time, and he's no monk; and it's harmless, anyway, a little flirting. He's always been a flirt. Always pushed his luck, always tried for a smile from a pretty lady. With her he frames everything in humbleness, half-joking and half-worshipful, knowing it never would, never _could_ , lead anywhere.

And _Maker,_ he enjoys it. When he sees her approach, he cannot keep the smile from his face.

She smiles, too. “You're strangely charming, for a man I found wandering in the wilderness.”

He doesn't know what to say to that, though the “strange” part isn't wrong. She's strange, too, in her way. Her eyes are distant, as if always looking into the fade. Could mages do that? Could elves? He'd only ever seen Dalish before at a distance, spitting _Shemlen_ at him with their arrows raised in warning.

He makes some quip about compliments from pretty ladies and she teases him. He tries to extricate himself, _Anything heavy you need moved?_ , but she makes a comment about _particular talents_ and Maker's breath, she can't be serious.

He wants to believe, though. Dear Andraste, he wants to believe. So he swallows.

“I must say, my lady... you're unlike any woman I've ever met. I...” he hesitates. He wants to know her intentions, if she means this or what, if he can press his luck or... and Maker, but she's beautiful. And what does he have to offer, in the way of a pretty face or fine conversation? He's flattered she spends any time with him at all, and tells her so. He finds himself saying he enjoys her company, and can't regret it, not when she smiles at him like that.

But she steers the conversation back. “If you like compliments, there are more of them in my quarters,” she says with a smirk, and he splutters and coughs with the blood rushing to his face. ( _Better there than somewhere else,_ he thinks.)

He demurs, of course. She didn't mean it, anyway, she couldn't – he must be twice her age. The brazen invitation from that innocent face with its wide eyes and soft fall of black hair has thrown him. _Appearances can deceive,_ he reminds himself sharply. She's a person, flesh and blood, not the fine-boned, innocent china doll she sometimes seems.

Out in the world, of course, she is all passion, throwing fire from her hands and beating brigands to death with her staff. He has immense respect for her strength, and for the power granted her by Fate, or Andraste, or whoever. But here in Haven she can rest, and she seems delicate, small, her movements slow and graceful.

He grants her her victory in their little battle of flirtation, and resolves not to play that way again. It is only going to lead to trouble. Especially if she keeps inviting him to her bed. It isn't as if he's not tempted, watching her slender elven hips sway as she goes over to pet the great red hart she rides.

 _Stop it,_ he tells himself, tearing his eyes away to focus them on the Breach above. _What are you doing, man? She's the fucking_ _**Herald of Andraste** _ _._

Maker, why had he started this? Flirting, with the Herald? He retreats to the armour of formality. No. No more flirting with the Herald. There were women enough, anyway, to flirt with. Women _without_ the fate of the world on their shoulders.

 

 


	5. Her Keeper's First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Avoid Flirting goes as planned while out in the wilderness.

It's easier away from Haven, to avoid flirting with her. She slips into a role he is beginning to realise is a little like the one of Keeper. She had been her Keeper's first, she had told him one night in the little tavern. Sera had been there, matching the Iron Bull cup for cup, half-listening and making sarcastic comments about _Elvey Elves_ . But he had hung on her every word, fascinated. Varric had thrown in his own experience with the Dalish of the Free Marches. Blackwall had read _the Tale of the Champion_ and knew of Merrill, the exiled first of her own clan.

The first of Clan Lavellan listened to Varric's stories of Merrill, enraptured, interrupting here and there when she realised their clans had crossed paths in the past. She had met Merrill, and liked her. Years ago, now. The Herald had been barely more than a child, and the two mages had played together, exchanging secrets. Blackwall watched her face as she spoke, the way the light played over her tattoos – _vallaslin_ , he had learnt the word that night – until he realised he had no longer been listening.

A Keeper's job is to keep. To keep the wisdom of the ages. To keep her clan safe, from humans and demons and monsters in the darkness. The Lady Herald, he discovers, does that with everyone she meets. If she can help, she does. She brings medicines and finds rings. She takes news of the dead to those that pine for them. It's not just to spread word of the Inquisition as a force for good. She's trying to be Keeper of the whole bloody world.

It's easier, away from Haven. Her attention is always elsewhere: on the thousand little requests she has carefully filed away in her mind; on the presence of rifts she always seems to sense; on the possible dangers around them. She doesn't have time for flirting. At night, when they make camp, she is quiet. She does not tell stories or jokes or join in the conversation around the fire. She sits, running her hands over her staff, smiling at the tales of others. Or she steps away, just to the edge of the firelight, to meditate alone or study the stars.

One night, when the others are sleeping, he looks up from staring into the fire to find her there beside him. She's studying his face, quirks a smile, and turns her own face to the flames.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he says, without thinking. _Not anything._

“I'd like to know more about you,” she says, and he must admit to himself that that's fair enough. He watches her back in battle, and of course she'd want to know who was fighting by her side.

He keeps his answers vague. When she asks about what had led him to the Wardens, about the person he used to be, he has to stop and swallow against the tightness in his throat.

In theory, it's easy to explain why he j– why he was _going to_ join. Warden Blackwall had found him in a bar, all blasted nobility and sharp eyes, and had conscripted him, like it or not. And he'd gone along, because why not? He had nothing else. Might as well throw his life away on some darkspawn.

Blackwall had had honour. When the Warden spoke of duty, of sacrifice, Thom Rainier's own sense of honour, tainted and ruined and blighted, stirred within him. Yes, he wanted that. He wanted to be worth something again. Maker knew he didn't deserve it, but if he could earn it, if he could sacrifice to protect Thedas...

He tells her, as vaguely as he can, of those things: of honour and duty and sacrifice. Those are important. But he can't go further than that. No details. He can't tell her about who he used to be. Who he still is.

“Your past is forgotten when you join the Wardens,” he says eventually. “Let's speak no more about it.”

 

 


	6. Pretty Women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you need Blackwall, he'll be in his bunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains sword-polishing. Yes, like that. NSFW!
> 
> Also I didn't check to see if he had a bed anywhere so I just invented a tent behind the smithy for him.

At Haven, the nights are hard. In more ways than one.

Yes, there are other pretty women to flirt with. And he does, to pass the time, to make them giggle. It's amusing, even fun sometimes, but they don't thrill his blood like _she_ does. And how could they? It's not their fault they aren't Andraste's Chosen, after all. And, Maker bless Her, Andraste had chosen well.

There are nights he can't shake the thought of her, the line of her cheekbones, the gentle curve of her thigh, the oh-so-rare impish grin. He has seen that grin shared with Sera. She has never directed it at him.

He imagines her flashing him that grin, as she sinks to her knees before him and takes him in one delicate hand.

His own is a poor substitute, but for now, in his makeshift tent behind the blacksmith's cottage, it's all he has.

_For now_ . It echoes around his head, taunting him.  _You damned fool, you really think she'll take you to her bed?_ She played the coquette before, but if he was to turn up in her quarters now, hot and hard for her, she would throw him out in an instant. 

He imagines it anyway: slipping inside her quarters while she's in some late-night meeting with the others, waiting in a shadow by the door for her to enter, to run her fingers through her hair, sigh, and peel away her enchanter's garb.

He would step forward out of the darkness and she would gasp, turning, a hand raised with a spell half-cast, until she recognises him and drops her guard. She would tilt her head with her brows drawn together, and ask him archly if he had come to take her up on her offer. He would nod, wordless, and before she could reply he would pull her to him and crush his mouth against hers. Hands moving down her back, under her shirt, where he'd tear it from her and throw it down before the hearth. He would tangle his fingers in her hair and drag his mouth down her exposed throat, her hips grinding against him as she gasped. Then he would push her back towards the bed, would press her down into the mattress, and then take her, drowning in the heat of her, the sweetness, her soft lips on his skin.

He groans as he finds his climax. After a moment, when his pleasure has seeped away into the night, he opens his eyes, panting as he stares at the dark canvas stretched above him.

Never again, he tells himself in the quiet secrecy of his mind. He turns over in his cot, determined to find sleep.

She is the _Herald._ Never again.

 

 


	7. Warden-hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Blackwall asks the Herald to help him find some things.

He involves her in his lie.

He needs to know more about the Wardens. That _Sister Nightingale_ has too many eyes, and one day he'll be caught out. He's been keeping his answers vague. The Wardens are known to be secretive, and that works in his favour, but he needs more if he's going to keep this up.

He knows before he asks her that she'll say yes, and hates himself for it.

“They could be useful. For the Inquisition,” he says. “Maps, treaties, that kind of thing.”

She nods, and smiles, and he doesn't expect to feel that smile cut as deep as it does. He swallows, guilt eating at him. But what's one more lie? He's lying all the time, every moment, just by being here. And such things _will_ be useful for the Inquisition.

Of course she says yes. Of course she does. She never turns anyone down if she can help it.

He is accompanying her on the Storm Coast one day when she suggests they go Warden-hunting. When he had asked her to help him, he hadn't anticipate coming here, to the Storm Coast. Nor had he envisioned her tracking down the old shack that he and Warden Blackwall – the real Warden Blackwall – had sheltered in one evening. His chest tightens as they approach, his every step a greater effort. He doesn't want to come back here. Doesn't want to see where they had camped, though they had left nothing behind to show they had been there.

Other Wardens, however, evidently had.

The Herald leads the way into the ramshackle hut, excited with the find, poking here and there at the bottles, the papers, the maps. He can only stand there and smile and say “good find!” as he aches inside. She beams at him, and he has to look away, crouching to sift through a chest that holds only dust and dirt.

When he stands again, she's by the bedrolls, brushing the dirt away from something in her hands.

“What's that you have there?” he asks her.

She shows it to him, triumphant. A Warden's badge.

He finds himself reaching out to take it from her, even smiles as he runs his thumb across the surface of the badge. Why, he wonders, did they leave it behind?

 


	8. "If the World Despised Me"

He thanks her, back at Haven. It's good of her to be doing this, to be helping him find these things. She doesn't have to. It was wrong of him to ask.

She waves it off. “We were already in the area,” she says.

That is true. But it changes nothing. He appreciates this, appreciates _her_ , wants her to know how Maker-blessed important she is to the world. And he tells her.

“I never would have guessed that you admire me,” she says when he's finished babbling, and he can't tell if she's teasing him again or not. Maker, a blind man could tell how much he admires her. But maybe she's being serious. There's a soft smile about her lips and he feels so damn _good,_ in this moment, that his admiration has pleased her. So damn good that he can make her smile, make her laugh.

“Of course I do,” he tells her, letting a smile soften his expression. “You have the world at your feet, myself included.”

“And if the world despised me, what then?” she grins at him.

In for a copper, he thinks.

“If that were to happen, I should reject the world for lacking in good taste,” he reassures her. “We could continue as we are... Us, against them.” That word _us_ catches in his mind and he panics. “We should get back to our duties,” he says quickly, “before I get carried away.”

As if he hadn't already.

_Us against them_ . Maker, he's losing all sense. True, if the world despised her he would follow her into the Fade and back, if she asked him. He can't imagine  _anything_ that would cause him to abandon her; and going on as they are, fighting and laughing and flirting... he doesn't deserve life to be so good. 

But why would she want  _him_ by her side? Standing with her against the world? Anyone would be better. Varric, or Iron Bull, or Solas, perhaps. He would only drag her down. Doom her. Damn her.

But he knows he would follow her anyway. Hopeless. Feckless. He smiles bitterly at himself.

And if the world despised  _him –_ and Maker knows, it would, if it knew –  _she_ would not stand with him. She would be the first to cast him out. And that's only right.

_You're lying to yourself,_ Blackwall thinks.  _There is no “us” you blighted fool. There **never** will be. _

 


	9. "I Can Fight"

When the battle is done, she isn't standing.

He's the only warrior along for this excursion into the Hinterlands. She wants to make sure the place is secure, and has sent some of the others further west. Their little party is exploring to the south, dodging bears and taking down bands of outlaws and bandits. They had seen some primal red lyrium around here somewhere, and she wants it destroyed.

Lyrium smugglers had jumped them, because nothing can ever be easy. They were easily dispatched, but somewhere along the way a prowler had disappeared into stealth. Blackwall hadn't seen him reappear.

“Where's the Herald?” he calls to the others. Varric and Sera meet his eyes in turn, worry creasing their faces.

“I'm over here,” the answer comes, strangely strangled.

Adrenaline floods through him and he runs, panicked, through the tall grass in the direction of her voice.

She is sitting on the ground, her hand pressed to the top of her neck, blood seeping through her fingers.

“I'm all right,” she says, before he can say anything. “It caught my jaw. It's just – it's bloody.”

“Where is he?” Blackwall asks her, hand tightening around his sword-grip.

She points to a body in the grass, a bloodstained dagger hanging from its fingers.

“He tried to slit my throat,” she says calmly, her hand glowing with a little Dalish magic to help knit the skin. “I didn't let him.”

Blackwall lets out a shuddering breath, impressed, but cursing himself besides.

“I should have been here to protect you,” he says, sheathing his sword and offering his hand to help her up.

She gives him a quizzical look. “You were. Over there, somewhere, slicing some brigand to pieces.” She waves her free hand to the trampled grass where he'd been fighting.

“I was,” he says. “I _should_ have been here.”

She sighs. “Blackwall, _honestly._ ” She rolls her eyes at him with a smirk, and lifts her hand away from the wound on her jaw. Her healing magic requires touch, and isn't useful on a battlefield, but it can close a wound or hasten healing when it's needed. The cut has scabbed, and is not as red and angry as it might be. She runs her finger down it, and nods in satisfaction. She turns her blue eyes to his face, and pats him on the shoulder. “You don't have to watch me _all_ the time,” she says. “I can fight pretty well myself, you know. When I need to.”

He winces. “I didn't mean it like that, my lady. I know you can look after yourself.”

She grins at him. “I know you didn't, Blackwall.” She tilts her head to the side, hair slipping from behind her pointed ear. “You know, it's sweet, the way you worry about me.” Her eyes sparkle in the afternoon sun, and in a gentle voice she says, “I should find some way to thank you for that, sometime.”

 


	10. Dark Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goin' to get the mages. Commence angst.

He had been almost glowing with pride when she asked him to accompany her to meet Magister Alexius. The Tevinter's a serious threat, and being chosen to guard her as she walked into a possible trap was an honour that humbled him. But things aren't going exactly to plan.

When the Magister's amulet flashes green, Blackwall throws an arm across his eyes. When he lowers it, she is gone, for only a moment – he barely has time to feel the panic hit – and then she is back: battle-worn, grimacing, haunted. Alexius falls to his knees. Beaten... and she has barely needed to say a word.

She tells them about it on their way back to Haven. The going-through-time. The future. Well, _Dorian_ tells them. _She_ rides with her eyes downcast, piping up occasionally to mention some detail that the other mage will seize and expand upon.

Dorian is enthusiastic and expressive, bloody arrogant Tevinter noble that he is, but he quietens when his tale reaches a particular part of the dungeon. He's hesitating, looking over at the Herald, and she raises her head to meet his eyes. She nods.

“Go on,” Dorian tells her, his voice hushed. “I don't know them nearly as well as you do.”

She takes a deep breath.

“We found you in the cells,” she tells them. “First you, Blackwall, and then Varric.” She shoots a look at the dwarf with eyes filled with pity and emotion. “Gods, Varric, you can't know – there was _so much_ red lyrium, I – ” She stops, and tries to compose herself.

Blackwall looks over at Varric and finds the dwarf grimacing, his jaw tight, his fist tight around his reins. Blackwall decides he will have to find out more about this red lyrium, and why exactly a dwarf, of all people, finds it so upsetting.

“I don't want to know,” Varric says at last.

“Well,” she says, “if you ever do, I will tell you.” She pauses. “But, no. You don't want to know.” She drops her voice, nearly to a whisper. “But you were very brave.”

They speak no more of it, riding in silence back to the safety of Haven.

Days later, Blackwall dares to approach her about it. More of the story has drifted around, the very nature of the terrible world she had been thrust into. Demons, terrors, a new god. A world destroyed. And he, he had been there. Locked in a dungeon for a _year,_ surrounded by red lyrium.

He has found out more information about red lyrium. None of it is nice.

What kind of man had he been, in that future? The need to know consumes him. When he sees her petting her hart, he stalks over to her, his hand closing convulsively over his stiff leather belt.

She turns as he approaches, her gaze patient and steady, waiting. He opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“What kind of man was I?” he asks her, at last. “In – in the dark future you went to. Was... was I...?” He gestures meaninglessly, his eyes drifting over the frozen lake below them.

“You were very brave,” she tells him, settling her hand on his arm, and at her touch he snaps his head back around to face her. “A hero. You sacrificed yourself to save me. To make sure that world would never happen.”

He lets out a breath that shudders with relief.

“Then I was worth something in the end,” he says, mostly to himself.

When he looks at her again she is studying him, her forehead furrowed. Before he can speak, the expression is gone. She turns from him, leans against the stable fence, gazing off at nothing. A muscle twitches in her cheek.

She hasn't finished.

“You were almost...” She stops, and starts again. “You had been in there a long time,” she says. “The lyrium had seeped into you. You... you were alone. For a _long_ time. It had shaken you, the loneliness and the lyrium. Driven you half-mad. You thought I was _dead,_ Blackwall. That you'd gone mad and were imagining me. ' _The dead should rest in peace.'_ That's what you said to me.”

Yes. The dead should rest in peace. It is the only real hope he has, the most fervent prayer, the most necessary belief. The dead should rest in peace. The sight of _her_ , her rest disturbed...

He has the realisation, suddenly, that he has never imagined she might die. Never considered what _he_ would do, if she were to die. Well, avenge her, _obviously_ , but after that, what? And if he couldn't avenge her, if he were locked away, if he _failed..._ He wants to leave, then, to go... _somewhere_ , to be alone for a while, to think, but she's speaking again, holding him there.

“It was so terrible, seeing you like that. Like you were caught in this unending grief, this... this _guilt,_ even, though none of it was your fault. I'd gone, in your time. I'd disappeared. It was _my_ fault. For not being there.” She heaves a sigh. “Seeing you. Seeing Varric, too, knowing how much he _hates_ red lyrium, and still trying to joke like the world wasn't gone to hell.... And then your bodies, when you died. Mythal, it broke me.”

He can't speak, has no words to reassure her, but she looks so distraught standing there that he raises a hand and cups her cheek, turning her face toward his.

Their eyes meet, and time stops for a moment before she quirks a smile and reaches up to squeeze his hand.

“Don't listen to me,” she says. “It's all just a nightmare now.”

She turns away.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 chapters, and we're not even up to "In Your Heart Shall Burn" yet. This is a slow one, team. I hope you're enjoying the ride.


	11. Tired of Smiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Herald's feeling homesick. Blackwall's not much help.

They are drinking in the tavern, a number of their band. Bull and Sera are having another one of their drinking contests. The little elf never wins, but she doesn't seem to mind.

Dorian brings another round to their table, and begins one of his stories about people they have never met, gesturing broadly and waggling his eyebrows at the suggestive parts. Varric challenges him on some of the plot points.

“No no no, now that would _never_ happen in a story.”

“I'm terribly sorry, Varric, but this _did_ happen.”

“See, that's where you're going wrong. Maybe that's how it _did_ happen, but that's not how you _tell_ it. Now, let me tell you how it _should_ go...”

Blackwall spots her in the doorway, slipping out into the night, and excuses himself to follow her.

She is strolling through the night, singing softly to herself. A woman approaches her and reaches out to take her hands, and she smiles and listens as the woman speaks. When the woman turns from her, the smile drops from the Herald's face, and she takes up her song again, winding her way through Haven.

He catches up with her just past the gate, as she walks towards the lake. She smiles at him, but it is a tired smile, and he reaches out to her.

She catches his hand in hers, and warmth fills her smile. “I'm sorry,” she says, and sighs. “I'm just so tired of – of everyone coming up to me, Herald this and Herald that – I don't believe in Andraste, and I know they do, and it's important to them – but I'm so _tired._ Tired of smiling and taking their hands like I'm a blessing all by myself.”

Blackwall bites his tongue. _He_ thinks her a blessing, right enough, but he's not about to tell her that now. He lets her lead him down to the lakeside, and says “I'm sorry to hear that, my lady.”

She looks at him sidelong as she releases his hand and settles herself down at the end of the pier. “Blackwall, why do you call me that?”

“What, 'my lady'?”

“Mm. No one else does. They call me Herald, or Mistress Lavellan, or something like that.” She purses her lips, though her eyes have humour in them. “I _do_ have a name, you know. It's Shae.”

“And a beautiful name it is, my lady.”

The compliment does not have the desired effect. She rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. “Ah, _fenedhis_ , I really miss my clan.”

Blackwall is taken aback. He has been alone as a wandering Warden for so long, and running so long before that, and he is ashamed to realise he has never spared much thought about the people she has left behind. But of course she misses them. Of course she's lonely.

He resolves to make sure she is not lonely in the future.

“You have friends here, my lady. Friends who care a great deal for you.” He puts feeling into the statement. He knows he is taking a bold step with that one, but he takes it because he can't resist the urge to comfort her.

She ignores it.

“It's not the same, Blackwall.” She kicks her legs, watches the flickering green of the Breach reflected on the ice. “They're my _family_. I sang with them, fought with them, ate with them and _grew up_ with them. They call me Shae, and da'len, and care for me because of who I am, not because of the mark on my hand.”

She lifts her left hand and glares at the mark, frustration darkening her features.

Blackwall reaches out, and takes the hand in his. Slowly, he pulls her hand over to him, and when he sees she is curious, he turns it over in his hands, studying the mark. He has never had a good look at it before, and it unnerves him. It's solid in a way that disturbs him, sitting deep within her flesh, and yet part of it. He traces his gloved fingers along its surface.

“Hmm,” he says, with a lightness he does not feel, “I don't know, my lady. It doesn't seem all that special to me. Maybe it's what _you_ do with it that's the important part.”

He looks up at her expecting to see her smiling, or perhaps pensive, but instead her face is drawn and he drops her hand.

Her eyes meet his, and she pulls her hand back to herself, curling it against her chest. “It – it feels odd, that's all,” she says softly, but her shoulders are set defensively, and her body is turned – just a bit – away from him.

_Maker's breath._

“I didn't mean to hurt you, my lady,” he says hastily, raising his hands. “I didn't know that it – that it troubled you...”

“I know. I know that. And you didn't hurt me, really. You didn't do any harm.” She has her left hand in her right now, massaging the flesh near the mark with her thumb, a grim expression on her face. Then she shoots him a tight smile. “Thanks for the talk, Blackwall. I think I'd like to be alone now, though.”

The dismissal hurts, he can't deny it. But she came out here to be alone. She never asked him to follow her.

So he stands, and bows, and takes his leave.

He turns back three times on his way to his tent. Each time she is in the same place on the edge of the pier, looking up at the stars with her feet dangling below.

 

 

 

 

 


	12. Free of the Weight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boo to the Fallow Mire, yay to making friends again.
> 
> (Seriously though fuck that place.)

They are in the Fallow Mire. A worse place Blackwall cannot imagine.

Well, no. That's untrue. But it's bloody unpleasant, right enough. The undead are stalking the roads; stepping in the water summons more of them out of the mire; and there's not a blighted living soul left in the place except the bastards who want to kill the Herald. It's a shit of a place, and the sooner they find the missing soldiers and get out, the better.

They rest at camp, recovering from a nasty fight against a group of demons. Blackwall ducks into a tent to get out of the damp, and sits on a wooden chest to pull at the fastenings of his armour. He'll be happy to get out of it and wipe it clean. It stinks of undead blood and swamp water.

The tent flap lifts, and Blackwall looks up to see the Herald silhouetted against the campfire's blaze. Her face is in shadow, but he can make out her small smile.

“Can – can I help you with that?” she asks, gesturing towards his armour straps.

“If you like,” he says, never one to turn away a woman who wants to help him out of his clothes. He smiles wryly at the idea, as she crouches beside him, quick fingers making short work of the task.

“I was short with you the other day,” she says, watching him as he lifts the breastplate from his chest and shifts his shoulders, free of the weight of the armour.

He sets the breastplate down and turns back to her, reaching out to take her hand. She seems smaller, crouched down before him. Small, and young, and tired.

“You were,” he says, slowly, carefully. “But you had reason to be. You were missing home, and I'd hurt you. We're all of us short when we're hurting.”

Her face twists in a grimace and she drops her eyes to their hands together, her fingers pale against his dark leather gloves.

“I don't... want to bother anyone,” she says, pulling the words out of herself with great effort. “It – it does bother me, the mark, but you... you didn't know. I was short with you, and I'm sorry.” She looks up at him, her face soft, awaiting his reply.

His chest clenches, and he gives her hand a gentle squeeze. “You need never worry about upsetting me, my lady. I'm made of strong stuff.” _And you're right to distance yourself_ , he thinks. _Maker forgive me, I should be pushing you away._

She smiles, her eyes warm, and squeezes his hand back.

“Thank you,” she says. “I just... I wanted to apologise. I don't like the idea of there being a... well, I was going to say a 'rift' between us...” Her smile twists into a smirk, and her eyes sparkle.

Blackwall chuckles. “You'll always be able to close the rifts between us, my lady,” he teases her.

She laughs at that, and stands, pulling her hand away.

“I'll leave you to tending your armour,” she says. “I want to talk to Solas about these shiny rune things.”

“As you like, my lady.”

She gives him another smile, and ducks out of the tent.

Blackwall drops down onto the sleeping roll and stretches out. Staring up at the canvas, a smile on his face, he decides the Fallow Mire isn't so bad after all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a pretty recent one that I inserted between the last one and the next one coming, which is the closing of the Breach. I just suddenly decided there needed to be something else in there. I keep moving chapters around, which is why I should be posting this slower, but no matter. I can always delete things and re-post them in a different order if I really need to.
> 
> Anyway, like I say, next up is the Breach, and then prepare yourselves because as you know, In Your Heart Shall Burn is some intense shit. 
> 
> Also if I find out they make that rift joke somewhere in canon I'm gonna be super disappointed.


	13. Close the Breach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short so you get chapter 14 TOMORROW. It is long. 
> 
> After that I have an essay to write so you'll have to sit tight.

They are going to close the Breach. _She_ is going to close the Breach.

The excitement clutches at his chest, his breath coming quickly. She's taking mages with her, of course. Dorian, Vivienne, Solas. But Blackwall wants to be there too, to watch her save the world.

He stands back with the other un-magical members of her little troop, and watches as she prepares herself. Her advisors are tense, though Josephine (delight that she is, and he doesn't mind admitting that) is looking up at the rift with eyes shining in anticipation.

_She can do this_ , he thinks to himself, and truly he has no doubt. Of course she can. She is Lady Lavellan, the Herald of Andraste.

A hushed mention of  _last time_ catches his ear, and he sidles closer to where Varric and Leliana are talking. 

_Last time_ . He hadn't been here before, the first time she'd tried to close the Breach. He'd never asked people much about it, more interested in how she'd managed to step out of the fade. 

“I know,” Varric is saying, “but still, it could kill her.”

His mind is all confusion for a moment, and he searches the ground below for the Herald, peering over shoulders of mages. There. Maker, she looks so  _tiny_ , facing up to that huge bastard rift. The fear he feels is overwhelmed, extinguished, by a sense of pride. She is so  _brave_ . For this. For everything.

Solas is speaking, calling to the mages to focus their magic past the Herald, and Blackwall keeps his eyes on her as she centres herself, and then she lifts her hand.

The blast knocks them all to the ground.

 

 


	14. In Your Heart Shall Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actiony stuff!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, hell. You get it now. I have no self control.

It was done. She had done it.

He hadn't seen her afterwards; she had been swept up by hordes of her fans, her face relaxing into an expression of pure, exhausted joy. He was happy just to watch, to follow the crowd back down the mountain to Haven.

They enter the village to a deafening cheer. Anyone who hadn't come up the mountain to watch had seen the Breach close from below, and _Maker,_ they love their Herald. The people of Haven catch her up, hoisting her on shoulders, holding her up by dozens of hands that carry her into the heart of the village. Templars embracing mages, mages dancing with Templars. Enmities – temporarily – forgotten. One of the mages even sends up some sparkling magic into the darkening sky, where it explodes into a diamond rosette, taking the breath away.

Casks are opened. Wine and ale are passed around. Blackwall finds Varric in the crowd and grins at him, raising the tankard he seems to have acquired from Maker knows where.

An hour passes, and, original energy exhausted, the revelry eases to a relaxed, joyful experience. Blackwall is sitting on the wall above the fire pit, his back to the Chantry, chatting with Iron Bull and Varric and Josie. It doesn't occur to him to be alert.

A horn sounds, ripping through the night. Cullen is running up from the gates, and for a moment he thinks the man just wants to be quicker to rejoin the party, but he's yelling for aid, calling soldiers to arms. The Herald and Cassandra exchange glances, and grab their weapons.

Blackwall is right behind them. People have scattered, civilians screaming, soldiers racing down the steps to their commander. Above the racket, the Herald's voice rings out, and Blackwall raises his head.

“Bull! Blackwall! Varric! To me!”

He's moving instantly, through the rabble, making his way down to the gate where he hopes to find her. As he reaches her side, a jolt runs through him.

There, in the valley, all the constellations have fallen to earth.

“Maker,” he breathes. “There must be a hundred thousand of them.”

Cullen has reappeared, directing squads of soldiers here and there. Soldiers rush to the trebuchets, and the Herald and her party stand to defend them.

In a fight, he thinks of her. She is less heavily armoured, more delicate, and when Bull is in the group, they have an agreement: Blackwall watches the Herald, and Bull can focus on killing things. And Varric puts as many arrows in people as he can.

So he watches her, in battle, out of the corner of his eye. The light of her magic shining in her hair. The concentration on her face. Her movements as she arcs her staff through the air.

Red Templar reinforcements arrive from below, flocking to the Herald, and with a roar Blackwall dispatches his opponent and charges to her side. For a moment, they fight back to back, moving almost as one as they pick off the enemy.

But the battle is getting away from them. Their soldiers are falling, one by one. And there are still so many thousands more in the valley. They cannot keep this up. Eventually they will be brought down by sheer exhaustion, while fresh Templars leap over the bodies of their fallen.

“Now!”

Blackwall looks up as the trebuchet looses and crashes into a mountainside. It sets off an avalanche, and in seconds the invading army is buried beneath the snow. All those torches, snuffed out in an instant. Silence reigns. For a moment, relief rushes through them. Varric and the Herald clap one another on the shoulder and laugh, and Blackwall smiles in pure relief.

But then a shriek, a roar, echoes through the sky, and they see the dragon.

Haven is on fire. They are running, checking to find the living among the bodies of the fallen as they rush through towards the chantry. The Herald is drawn by every cry for help, instructing her allies to watch her back as she rushes into one burning building after another to save the person within. She saves as many as she can, until they have to all but drag her towards the chantry.

A moment's reprieve, nothing more. Somehow there are still Templars coming up the hill, and the dragon, or arch-demon or whatever it is, could roast them all alive in here. The Herald is speaking with Cullen, and then that old grouchy cleric. Poor sod; his wounds look mortal. But then people are moving, moving towards the back of the chantry, the whisper of  _secret path_ and  _Andraste's blessing_ rippling through the crowd. 

The Herald is still with Cullen, her eyes fixed at the Chantry door. She nods to the Commander, then, and beckons the three of them – Blackwall, Iron Bull, Varric – over to her.

“There's another trebuchet,” she says. “If we can set it off, we can bury this place, and perhaps that dragon with it.”

“My lady – ”

“I'll sacrifice myself for Haven if I have to,” she says, ignoring him. “I can't ask the same of you. You might not come back from this.”

“We all gotta die someday,” Varric says with a shrug.

She looks at down him, smiling with the particular fondness that she has for the dwarf. She looks to Bull, who only nods, and then at Blackwall himself.

“I'll follow you into the black city itself, my lady,” he says.

She gives him a wry smile. “Last time that happened, we got the blight. I don't think we'd want to risk it a second time. Your fellow wardens would never forgive you.”

 

 


	15. The Elder One

There was one great, hideous lyrium-warped monster, but the rest of Blackwall's opponents all blur into one. Through it all, the Herald keeps returning to the trebuchet, turning it bit by bit to face the mountainside above them.

When the dragon finds them, she screams at them to run.

Blackwall knows he cannot hesitate. In battle, you obey your commander. He runs. Behind him, an explosion. But he keeps running. When he gets to the Chantry, she will be there. Right behind him.

But she is not.

In the dark of the back of the chantry, they linger, hoping. The others are ahead, up on the path, climbing through the mountains and away from Haven and the terrible lyrium army. They wait. Until they cannot wait any longer, and with regret, they head up the path.

From above the tree-line, they can see down into Haven. The Elder One, huge and fierce, holds the Herald by one arm. Her mark is burning green, bright enough for all the Inquisition to see. The monster throws her, then, down onto the trebuchet.

Something heavy settles in Blackwall's throat. This is her chance, and he knows she's going to take it. And he loves her for it.

 

 


	16. Stop Hoping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Herald is presumed dead. Angst ensues.

The Herald is dead.

They're leaving a trail through the mountains. Not even on purpose; they wouldn't want the Elder One to follow it. But they can't help dropping things, breaking things, having to leave things behind. Maker knew how they even managed to get everything together so quickly. If he hadn't before, Blackwall now has immense respect for the people who lead the Inquisition.

The journey is hard. A blizzard has blown in, sheeting snow down on them. They have to stop frequently, for the young and the old and the injured. The old cleric is close to death. Their leaders are worn with stress, and take to arguing each time they are forced to stop. No one even knows where they are.

Blackwall helps where he can. He did not get out of the fight with the Templars unscathed; after the adrenaline had worn off aches and bruises announced themselves in no uncertain terms, and the first time they had stopped to rest a cut needed stitching. Still, he helps where he can, carrying the wounded, taking no elfroot poultices for himself in order that others may use their dwindling supplies.

Varric has been muttering for hours that he'd _told_ her heroes' stories never end well. Blackwell thinks he might punch him.

He has been holding out hope, but a night and a day have passed and with no sign of her and with the blizzard finally easing, he acknowledges to himself that she is dead.

He's alone in one of the small tents they've erected. No one can sleep. Most of their little group of chosen fighters seem to have drifted here or there to mourn themselves. Now, with some relative peace, and a moment to rest, he stares at his hands in the gloom of the tent.

 _She is dead_. _She is dead. Understand that. Stop hoping, you stupid, miserable man._ _**Stop hoping.**_

He tries to kill the spark of hope, tries to crush it where it lives in his chest. And he does.

As it dies, it releases a bubble of grief that rises up through him, and he's sobbing, then, his eyes blurring with tears and the muscles tight in his jaw as he drops his head to his hands and digs his fingers into his scalp.

_Andraste, no, this can't be. She was your **chosen**! Your herald! How could you do this? Maker, why? _ Tears streaming down his cheeks, he raises his face towards the heavens. _I loved her!_

The declaration is his, but still it catches him off-guard. He hadn't known it before, hadn't truly known that what he felt for her was love. That what he  _feels_ is love. A sob lodges in his throat, and he draws in a harsh lungful of air. He hadn't known he loved her before, when she'd stood before him shining like one of her Elven goddesses. When she was full of joy and spirit and  _life_ . No. He knows it now, when she is dead. 

And, with bitter agony, he thinks,  _It's for the best, really._

 

 


	17. Sweet Andraste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ruined DiamondsxStags's day so I'm posting another chapter quickly to... well, ruin their day again, I guess. 
> 
> On the bright side, in the distant future you will be able to read SMUT. I have written some and I am MODERATELY PLEASED with it.
> 
> But yeah I'm... I'm really sorry about this.
> 
> (I'm not actually that sorry.)

He has run out of tears. Some have turned to ice on his skin, and he doesn't bother wiping them away. In the cold tent, he lies on his cot, staring unseeing at the canvas.

She is dead, she is dead, she is dead.

It repeats with every beat of his heart. She is dead, she is dead, she is dead. Eventually, he hopes, the refrain will lull him to sleep.

Varric had found him earlier. He had murmured “Finally,” and left him with a wineskin.

She is dead, she is dead, she is dead.

Cullen has people out searching. The Commander must know she is dead, but he has them searching anyway. Blackwall feels this like a small, flickering flame in his chest, because the Commander is doing all he can to bring her back to them. To keep the people's hope alive. He is a good man. But he must know that she is dead.

She is dead.

A distant cry rouses Blackwall from a doze. The cry is echoed by another shout, and then more, and talking, crying, laughing.

_What's this?_ He pushes himself upright, and wipes the frozen tear-trails from his cheeks. 

Slipping out of the tent, the campsite seems alive, alight, like movement and colour returning to frozen limbs. The people have gathered to the edge of the camp, some breaking away to run out into the snow.

Blackwall has his hand on his sword, but there's no fear in the air, and the crowd parts to let Cullen through. The man looks grim, but there's a sparkle in his eye, and as Blackwall moves to see him better through the crowd he catches sight of what he's carrying.

_Sweet Andraste..._

He falls to his knees in the snow.

 


	18. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Herald's not dead after all.

Everyone wants to watch over the Herald, so they take it in turns. No one wants to up camp, either, not while she needs her rest. When they found her she was frozen, beyond exhausted, and Bull had gathered her to him and wrapped them both in a fur cloak to keep her warm. Varric takes over from him when they have the Herald settled in a cot, speaking to her in a hushed voice, probably some story or other.

Sera doesn't take a turn to watch her. She floats closer, then dances away, confusion on her face. Blackwall doesn't blame her. He can relate.

When it's his turn, his hour, he takes her hand in his, slipping off his gloves to better warm her fingers. He wants to speak, to say something, now, when she might hear him in her dreams. But words won't come.

He presses her hand to his cheek. Her palm is calloused from the wood of her staff, but the back of her hand is soft as any noblewoman's, and he turns his head to let his lips brush against her skin.

“I'm glad you're back,” he says, his voice a croak.

She shifts and murmurs in her sleep. Then the murmur becomes a groan, and she's pulling her hand away from him to press it against her head.

“Mythal, what happened?” she asks, her eyelids fluttering open.

Blackwall stares down at her, and swallows. “You're alive, my lady,” he says, half-stunned to see her wake.

“Well, I _know_ that,” she says, rolling her eyes. She winces, and rubs the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I saw Cullen, but I wasn't sure he was real. He was real?” She looks up at him.

He nods. “He was real.”

She sighs, and rests her head back on her makeshift pillow. “I need to talk to him. And Josie and Leliana. Corypheus – we need to plan – ”

“ _You_ need to rest, my lady,” he says gently, leaning forward to adjust the fur cloak spread on top of her.

“There's no time to rest,” she murmurs, but her eyelids are already drifting closed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like Zenguin who brought up in the comments, I always got a little annoyed that you drag yourself through a blizzard, long enough for them to have camped more than once, everyone must assume you're dead, and then you appear out of the snow and the one who's watching over you is MOTHER GISELLE. Even when all the singing happens, most of your companions are nowhere to be seen. 
> 
> So, the way I figure it, the Herald spends some time resting, during which time various other friends watch over you. Otherwise it feels kind of lonely. Like they just don't happen to notice. 
> 
> Also, I like the idea of Bull having a lot of body heat to spare. He spends all this time surrounded by snow, not wearing a shirt. Best choice to warm someone up quickly, I think. Not the best choice sexual-tension-wise, but you have to wait for that, I'm afraid. This wasn't the right time for that.


	19. The Ramparts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaangst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. 19 chapters and 10,000 words in, and we're finally at Skyhold. So this.... this is a long story.
> 
> Things might slow down a bit posting-wise as I fill in some chapters I haven't written yet and get things arranged how I want them. Probably still 2ish chapters a week because I just enjoy posting them, but we'll see how we go.

They make her Inquisitor, and he is _so_ damn proud.

It's fitting, of course. For the most part it's been her making the hard decisions. She's the one people flock to, the one Corypheus wants. The one who came back from the dead. The one who had led the way to the hidden fortress of Skyhold, veilfire burning to light their path.

She has made good choices so far, or at least, he thinks so. But being a leader needs more than that, and he feels a quasi-protective urge to take her under his wing, to teach her how to lead. She has been doing a good job of winging things, and there will always be Commander Cullen to take charge of her army, but being Inquisitor is not the same as being Herald. Not by a long way.

He takes her up with him to walk the ramparts, to talk to her about defences. She will need to know these things. Will need to know all she can about the fortress and its people.

Once they're up there, he is less sure of himself. He hasn't been alone with her since the destruction of Haven, and it's difficult, now. They are not just two people thrown together by Fate. She is Inquisitor, leader of the Inquisition. She has duties and responsibilities. And he is.... Well.

The view from the ramparts is spectacular. Enough to make one gooey-eyed. The young soldiers will be coming up here to neck in some dark corner or other in the evenings, he'd wager. Sitting with a bottle of wine, staring up at the stars.

He shakes his head to clear himself of these thoughts, and gestures to the sole path into Skyhold. “We'll be able to see Corypheus coming,” he says with some satisfaction.

“If we can see him, he'll be able to see us,” she replies in a wry tone. He looks over at her, and echoes her smile.

“I know our soldiers,” he says, filled with a fierce pride. “Corypheus made a hundred enemies by attacking Haven. And when he came after you, he _really_ made it personal. I swear I'll take that twisted bastard down, even if I have to die to do it.”

“I'm not losing anyone to Corypheus,” she says, her forehead furrowing with a mix of emotions – hate, fear, determination. Something else. “Especially not you.”

The words land on his chest like lead weights, and he scrambles to right himself from under them. Maker, no, he _can't_ mean anything to her.

“You can't afford to think I'm special,” he says, his face falling. He tries to speak with certainty, with steel. It's important she knows this as a commander, too, important that she distance herself, that she not waste her precious time on him.

He has told himself it was just friendly flirting on her part, a youthful game for her to relax with as she teased him and laughed with him. Yes, he loves her. But she, she had never felt the same. Had she? No. This isn't right. She does not even know his real name. She thinks him a Warden. A brave man. A _good_ man. An honourable man.

The man she has feelings for does not even exist, and if Blackwall has ever owed anyone anything, he owes it to her not to let this continue.

He confesses he is fond of her. _Fond_. A fucking stupid word, but the only one he can bring himself to say. Yes, he loves her, but he cannot say it. Cannot ever say it.

“This... whatever you want this to be...” and he can't even think on that, can't let himself imagine it, “is impossible.”

But she won't let it go. Pursues it. Pursues _him_.

“Why is it impossible?” she asks him, stepping forward, tilting her head up in a way that shows the scar along her jaw. “I know you have feelings for me.”

If this had been less painful, he would have laughed. All this time, and he'd thought she was blind for not seeing it. But she is quiet, and hides her cards well. Perhaps she had known before he did.

He tells her no. He wants her, _Maker_ , he wants her. And she wants him – he thinks it like a subversive thought – yes, she wants him back. All he would need to do is step forward and kiss her.

He steps back instead, pleading with her. Putting distance between them, because he can't be close to her, not now.

“Don't make this any harder than it already is. We're both bound by duty,” he tells her. Her duty is to the Inquisition. His is to Warden Blackwall, to the life the man should have been living. And to her.

He leaves her up there on the ramparts, and doesn't look back. It feels like a morning-star to the chest, but in the long run, it will spare them both a lot more pain.

It's fine for him to love her, from afar, as he deserves. But Maker, no, she cannot love him back.

 

 


	20. "I Don't Judge"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall overhears a conversation.

He watches her.

He is sitting in a corner of the tavern in a pleasant haze of almost-drunk when she walks in. He settles back and watches as she stops to talk with Krem, and a few other Chargers who are having a game of cards. She exchanges a joke with Bull. Smiles at the bard, who has started up one of her favourite songs.

She approaches the barman, and orders a drink. She hovers, chatting with him as he pours her a cup of one of the sweet liquors she prefers. If Blackwall leans over the table a little, he can hear them over the tavern noise.

“Any rumours?” she asks him. “What's the word?”

“Not everyone's pleased with you sleeping with your allies,” the barman replies.

The Inquisitor visibly starts, the tips of her ears turning pink, her mouth hanging open. She doesn't know how to reply to this; stunned, she takes her drink and swallows a mouthful.

“Well,” she says, “it's none of their business.”

The barman shrugs. “Hey, I don't judge.”

She ignores this, and stalks off up the stairs.

Blackwall has been rooted to his chair, stiff with shock and anger, his cup frozen halfway to his mouth. The man _dared_ say that to the Inquisitor? People were _discussing_ this?

Was it _him_ in these rumours? Maker, he hadn't even _kissed_ the woman! He is mortified to have damaged her reputation, and furious at the small part of him that thinks _if people were going to talk anyway, I may as well have fucked her._

But perhaps it isn't him. Maybe the Inquisitor has heeded his request, and turned her attentions elsewhere. If so, so much the better. But he does not want her talked about, either way.

Blackwall approaches the bar, a dangerous glower in his eyes, his face dark with anger.

“I heard what you said to the Inquisitor,” he says, seating himself before the bar with more relaxed ease than he felt.

The dwarf blanches. “Did you?”

He nods. “People are none to happy with the company she keeps, I hear.” He makes a show of examining his whisky. “Any people in particular?”

The dwarf huffs. “Now look, Warden,” he says, raising his hands. “I don't want any trouble. I don't judge, like I told the lady. Who she takes to her bed is _her_ business. But she asked what the word was around the Inquisition, and I told her.”

Blackwall glares at him. “I don't suppose there are any _details_ in these rumours? Who the man might be, perhaps? Because if they have anything to do with me, know that I haven't _touched_ her. She's too fine a lady for the likes of me, Maker knows.”

The dwarf shrugs, and relaxes somewhat. “Hey, you'll get no argument from me.” He bends down to fetch a cloth from beneath the bar, and starts to wipe down the wood. “People know who she talks to, and how often,” he says. “Who she seeks out every day. They see the looks that get exchanged, and they make their own connections. They're fighting a war here, and gossip helps them relax. You can't blame them for that.” He stops, and plants his hands on his hips, cloth twisted between his fingers. “If you don't mind me saying it, Warden – what's wrong with you? You a eunuch, or something?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here I was, running around Skyhold talking to everyone, as you do. And this asshole says to be, "not everyone's happy with you sleeping with your allies"
> 
> like
> 
> I BEG your pardon? HE TURNED ME DOWN! I haven't even KISSED HIM YET.


	21. And You Will Weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Skyhold scene, featuring Jealous!Blackwall. Oh, you're sick of Skyhold now, but just wait until we're in the Western Approach. You'll be BEGGING for a Skyhold scene then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one contains some song lyrics. Usually I'd use some lyrics from in-game (which I do in later chapters) but I was on the bus thinking of this fic and "Gollum's Song" from The Two Towers started playing and I thought, oh shit, this sounds like the sort of thing Blackwall would read way too much into. 
> 
> My Inquisitor's love of music has been alluded to before and will be referenced again. I just like the idea of her singing along to herself while they trot through the undergrowth until it gets stuck in everyone's heads and they resent her for it 
> 
> BUT ANYWAY, ON WITH THE FIC
> 
> PS next chapter is super short and so will be posted RIGHT AWAY, HOLD ONTO YOUR TROUSERS FOLKS

Skyhold has good acoustics. A strong voice will carry, echo through passageways, resound in the Great Hall. She loves the acoustics, and makes good use of them, her clear voice ringing out from odd corners of the place as she explores.

She seems to have collected songs. Some are Elven, especially late at night, when she's feeling lonely and missing her people. Others are Fereldan, Orlesian, from the Marches. She even asks the Iron Bull to teach her some Qunari songs, and he laughs, says he can teach her some lyrics but he can't carry a tune to save his life.

Sometimes she joins the injured soldiers by the fire, or slips into the Herald's Rest for a drink. When her turn comes to tell a tale, she sings instead, holding her audience in the palm of her hand. Blackwall joins them often, sometimes in the circle close around her, sometimes at a distance, watching with a drink in his hand and his heart in his eyes.

One night she talks Cullen into singing with her. A duet, one she favours, but rarely has the chance to sing. A crowd gathers in the courtyard before the Herald's Rest, and she drags the poor man up onto the steps in front of the Great Hall.

Cullen is blushing red to the tips of his ears, but his voice is strong, and a good complement to hers. They have the crowd enchanted in moments. It is a love song, tender and beautiful, enough to break the heart. The Inquisitor is radiant, her eyes shining as she turns her face towards Cullen.

The Commander gets into the spirit of things as the song progresses, taking her hand and singing to her like a man of the stage.

Blackwall's jaw is tight with frustration and jealousy. He knows he has no right to feel it, either. He has pushed her away, told her they can never be. Why wouldn't she go to Cullen? Or to Varric, whom she holds in such high regard? A fortress full of men and women; did he really think she'd not find someone else?

Besides, _he_ cannot sing. Not like that.

The song comes to its end, poignant and sweet. The Inquisitor grins, and kisses her Commander's cheek, and leads the applause as he bows awkwardly to the crowd.

She stands alone, then, and warns her audience that this one is sad, a song of tragedy and betrayal. Blackwall shifts on his feet and lifts his bottle of whisky to his lips. _A sad one, eh?_ Perhaps it would soothe his mood.

She clasps her hands before her and closes her eyes, and her voice winds around him like a spell.

 _Where once was light,_  
_Now darkness falls._  
 _Where once was love,_  
 _Love is no more._  
 _Don't say, goodbye_  
 _Don't say, I didn't try..._  
 _These tears we cry_  
 _Are falling rain!_  
 _For all the lies you told us,_  
 _The hurt, the blame!_  
 _And you will weep,_  
 _When you face the end alone_  
 _You are lost!_  
 _You can never go home._  
 _You are lost!_  
 _You can never go home..._

The final words echo after him as he makes his escape. He doesn't know where he's going, only that he has to leave, to get away from her, from the song that has pulled his fears from his soul and laid them out bare.

All the lies he's told them. Told _her_. Maker, does she know? Is she accusing him? Telling him she feels nothing for him now, that he'll die alone, unmourned, forgotten –

No, no. He's being stupid. It's just a song. Just a song.

He stops in his direction-less flight and looks around himself, peering in the dark. His eyes adjust, and he can make out iron bars and a tumble of stone.

The dungeons.

He turns, slowly, and picks his way back up the stairs.

 

 

 


	22. The Guilt

The guilt.

It torments him, dragging him back, chaining him to the wall of his own personal dungeon.

He had felt want, before. Want, and then fear. The fear has passed, now. Oh, it will return, he knows. But this moment belongs only to the guilt.

_How **dare** you love her, Thom Rainier? How **dare** you drag her into your lies? She doesn't deserve it, she who is kind and good and wants to save the world. She'll do it, too. And when she does, it won't be because of you. It will be in **spite** of you._

He hides in the barn. He does not know why. It is a stupid choice, really; the Inquisitor will come to check the horses and rub her delicate fingers along her hart's nose. But he stays anyway. Hoping to catch sight of her. Hating himself for it.

The guilt rages. _How can you still_ _ **want**_ _her, knowing how much your lies will hurt her? How can you want her, when this want hurts_ _ **you**_ _so bloody much? You are a stupid man. A masochist. Show some fucking self-preservation and go hide in the wine cellar instead. Getting black-out drunk is about the only thing you're good for._

She doesn't see him when she comes to visit her hart. She coos to the creature in Elvish, and presses her cheek against its huge forehead.

The guilt flares black in his chest, and chews away at his flesh.

 


	23. He Will Tell her

He crawls back to her like a wounded dog.

She has not pushed their – their – whatever they have. Maker knows, he is thankful for that. But her eyes still linger on him across the camp-fire. Her smile, when she looks at him, is patient and kind and warm.

He decides. He must tell her.

He has never felt fear like this. Not in battle, not when his crime became known and he fled Orlesian justice. It would be easier, he thinks, to fall on his sword than to tell her the truth. But he must do it. He loves her, _needs_ to love her, and he cannot love her if his very name is a lie.

When, walking Skyhold's grounds, she stops by the barn to say hello, he apologises for pushing her away. She is understanding, of course she is, standing there in a shaft of sunlight, patient as an oak. She has let him take the time he needed, knowing there is a battle within him. She waits.

“I owe you an explanation for what I did... But not here.”

“What is it?” she quirks her head to the side, curious, a fall of hair slipping across her eyes. “A vow of celibacy? A dead wife?” She narrows her eyes. “A _living_ wife?”

_Ah, if only._

“I cannot tell you here,” he repeats, his voice almost cracking under the strain. “The Storm Coast... Next time we're there...”

“Of course, Blackwall. We'll head back there soon.” Another smile, as she tosses the hair out of her eyes. “We have some darkspawn to kill there, after all.”

The wait is torture. He tries to compose what he will say, but he cannot find the words he wants to use. In his head it all plays out, what she'll do, what she'll say. The shock in her eyes. The anger on her face. In one of these scenarios, she smiles and reaches out to him, cradles his head to her chest as he drops to his knees, and tells him it will all be all right.

He is aware of the unlikelihood of this. Still, he clings to it with every part of himself. He needs to tell himself it is possible, or he will never be able to do this.

His greatest fear is that she will send him away. Execution he could handle – it would only be right; he has been lucky to dodge justice this long. But to lose not just her, but the purpose he has found in the Inquisition – to be a lost soul again, wandering the world – he's not sure he can stand it. Not again. How could he stand to lie alone under the stars, knowing that she is out there, looking up at the same sky, and he will never see her again?

But he _will_ tell her. He _must_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the "dead wife" line is actually from the tower scene, but I used it here instead.
> 
> I have written two more chapters this week! They contain very little in the way of plot. One of them is mostly smut. I intended to *skip* the smut and jump right over it into plot but that didn't happen because I am shipper trash I guess. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> It's funny because the parts I'm *posting* are so angsty but the parts I'm *writing* totally aren't. However, the great (terrible?) thing about these two is stuff is angsty, and then becomes nice and happy for a while, and then plunges into angst again.


	24. In the Mud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Storm Coast, where Blackwall completely fails to do a thing.

He cannot tell her.

Their party makes camp at an Inquisition outpost. When the sun begins to set, painting the sky in reds and pinks, she comes to him, as good as her word.

“Come on,” she says to him, beckoning. “Let's go sit somewhere and watch the sun set. You can tell me whatever it was you were wanting to say.”

He follows her over the beach and up the side of the hill, and it's _right there_ , what he wants to show her. It's as if somehow some part of her knew where they were going the entire time. As if Blackwall – the _real_ Blackwall – was leading her, trying to show her Thom Rainier's guilt.

“It happened here,” he blurts out as they climb. “I was with – ” he catches himself, “another warden. He – he died.”

“I'm sorry,” she says, turning to him, her forehead furrowing. “That must have been hard for you.”

“It was... It affected me.”

She offers him a reassuring smile, and extends a hand to help him over a rock. Nimble little thing that she is, jumping and climbing over everything. She trots ahead of him again, scouting through the bushes towards the edge of the outcrop. She slows when she finds the bodies. Skeletonized, piled on ground that has blackened with blight.

“Are these darkspawn?”

He nods. He steps towards the larger pile of bones, dragged down in the past, trying to seize upon something he can use to get himself started. To tell her.

His boot thumps against something in the mud.

Blackwall's badge. He bends to pick it up, old grief rushing back like a tide. He wipes it clean with some reverence, and it shines in the dying light. This. This is it. He will tell her. If he can get his mouth to work...

_Come on, man. You've practised this in your head a hundred times._

“You must have lost it in the battle. That was careless of you.”

He looks at her, and she is smiling, waiting, open. Completely unaware of the  _lie_ he has been living.

And he cannot tell her.

His nerves are screaming  _flight or fight, flight or fight_ and he cannot think beyond the terror, the panic.

He cannot tell her.

“How careless, indeed,” he stammers out.

He cannot tell her. She can never know.

He gropes for something. Some small truth to give her. He stands there in front of a pile of darkspawn bones and draws the blackness out of his chest. The words come slow, stilted. He speaks of death and hardship, of solitude and a life he cannot bear to return to. And he begs her, silently, to understand.

“This was my life before I met you. Crumbling ruins, endless battles. Death.”

“But you have _me_ now,” she says, stepping close to him, so close. Too close. “You don't have to face those things alone. Not any more.”

He has to get out of here.

“There's nothing more for me here,” he says, voice wavering. “We can talk back at Skyhold. I... I have to think.”

His words tumble out in a rush and he's moving before he finishes speaking, and he doesn't look back. Hopes she isn't following him.

_I couldn't do it,_ he screams to the voice of Guilt.  _I couldn't, not with her standing there. **Trusting** me._

_Of course you couldn't do it. Go ahead and live your lie._

She will never know, he tells himself as he moves through the trees. She will never know. It will... it will be fine. She cares for Blackwall. And he can pretend to be that man, for her.

She never has to know about Thom Rainier. His crimes will never haunt her.

 

 


	25. Above the Sky Lies Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing books.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book mentioned in this chapter is the one you find in the Fallow Mire, and it does contain the song. I don't always read all the codex entries, and I happened to be romancing Blackwall the first time I read this one, and wondered what the Inquisitor would think when she read it. It is deeply sad.
> 
> Also, I still have no idea what that little library is for.

She likes to explore.

Skyhold has a hundred rooms – more – and there are parts of the keep even their growing numbers do not use. Every day she explores. He sees her, from the place he has claimed in the barn, slipping in through the scullery door, or some other hidden passage she has found. One day, breathless and grinning, she trips down the scullery steps to him and drags him with her, back inside.

“I found a library!” she says, face alight.

He can't help but chuckle. Her enthusiasm is almost tangible.

“Yes, I've seen it too,” he says. “Dorian spends a lot of time there.”

“ _No_ , _another_ library! It's a _secret_ library!” She won't stop grinning. “I am going to tell Sera, and you, and no one else. Well, _maybe_ Varric.”

He laughs again, touched that she has picked him to share this secret with.

She leads him through rooms he had had no idea were even in Skyhold. A reception room, long and fine – for private meetings, perhaps? Or was it a dining hall? Small rooms, filled with cobwebs and nothing else. Then she pushes open a door and there it is: bathed in pale light, a great book open on the desk.

She is watching him, her arms folded and a small grin on her face. “Well?”

She was right: it is remarkable. The short passageway to the library proper is also lined with books, and the room itself is tiny, circular, _secret_.

“It's the very image of a little mage's hide-away,” he says to her, and she bounces on her toes.

“I know! Isn't it? I can't _believe_ it.” She skips past him into the library, running her hands down the spines of books. “I suppose I should tell Dorian. He knows so much more about books than I do. We can't carry many in Aravels.” She pulls a book halfway from the shelf, then pushes it back. “I keep hoping there's a secret passageway or something,” she says. “It's almost as if it _can't_ just be what it appears.” She shoots a look at him over her shoulder. “Do you like books?”

He shrugs, then nods. “I do, I suppose. The Grey Wardens have a good library. That Warden book we found in the Fallow Mire, that has a song in it you might like. About the Calling. I should get it out for you. You can keep it in here.”

She flashes him a smile. “I would like that,” she says, resuming her examination of the spines, her fingers brushing away centuries of dust to trace along their titles. “Will you tell me about the Calling, one day?” she asks him. Then she stops, abruptly, and straightens, turning to look at him. “Is that why you push me away? Because of the Calling?”

He hesitates. “Stay here,” he says.

He has been reading the book in the evenings, by his little fire at the back of the barn. The song, or poem or whatever it was, had been scrawled on a blank page near the front. He has read it many times.

When he returns she is perched on the desk, eyebrows drawn together, a book in one hand and a flame of veilfire floating above the other. She looks up, and smiles, snapping the book shut, the light disappearing as she drops her hand.

“You have it?”

He nods, and hands it to her, page open.

She angles it into the soft ray of light from the high windows, and reads it silently. He has it memorised, now, and recites it in his mind as her eyes travel down the page.

_There was a stir within his blood_  
_And the dreams lay thick upon him._  
_A call did beat within his heart._  
_One road was left before him._

_Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey._  
_A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay._

_"See how the rain has washed away_  
_The tears that you were crying?_  
_Though the darkness calls me down_  
_You know we all are dying."_

_Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey._  
_A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay._

_And so he came upon the place_  
_Where so many tread before._  
_One last look upon the world_  
_Before he crossed that final door._

_Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey._  
_A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay._

_Birds reel across the endless sky, above a house upon the plain._  
_In memory she sings to him of a time before the rain._

_Sweet Andraste, hear our song_  
_For his road will be ours too._  
_Before darkness claims our souls_  
_Let us see that shred of blue._

_Hear the rain upon the leaves, above the sky lies grey._  
_A shred of blue would be denied. Alas, he could not stay._

She shuts the book. He cannot see her face, and desperately wants to. When she raises a hand to wipe at her eyes he reaches out to rest a hand on her back.

“Oh, no, now, I didn't mean for you to cry...”

She shakes her head. “She loved him so much,” she says, her voice watery. She sighs, then, a deep-felt sigh, and says “It must be hard, to send someone you love off to die. To know for certain that they will never be coming back.”

“That's why... ” He hesitates. “You know when you send soldiers off to fight, many of them won't be coming back. And that one day, I...”

She nods, and drops her head. “The Calling. I know.” She sniffs. “I'd like to be alone now.”

 

 

 


	26. Bathed in Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, I like that Blackwall seems to be fond of Sera. I think it's adorable. I love him telling her about the critters in the Oasis.
> 
> Second, I enjoy the idea of the companions being mortified every time you throw yourself off a high spot of Skyhold or slide down the side of a cliff because it happens to be faster. 
> 
> This chapter used to have a cute funny ending but then I changed it because I enjoy causing you pain.  
> xoxo

She likes heights far too much.

More than once she has thrown herself off Skyhold's walls, trotted across the roof of the barn, and dropped to the ground in front of him. Maker knows how she hasn't broken her neck. Sera is just as bad; perhaps must be an elven thing. He's seen them talking up on rooftops, Sera no doubt trying to egg the Inquisitor on in some plan she has.

He likes Sera, little troublemaker that she is. She's small and fierce and full of spirit. It takes him far too long to realise the reason he's fond of her is because she reminds him of his sister.

In the Forbidden Oasis, the two elves go climbing. They totter out on ledges that would make a tightrope-walker faint. It's all he can do to even watch them at it. Especially the Inquisitor. When she drops down the side of a cliff in search of another blighted shard he feels like his heart is in his mouth. That night, curled up in his tent with the sound of the waterfall in his ears, he decides he's never prayed to the Maker so much in one day.

He thinks about confronting her. The Inquisitor shouldn't risk her life like that, not with so much at stake. But he knows she'd dismiss his worry. And, really, what right does he have to worry about her? And her footing has always been sure. She's never stumbled, and only slipped down the side of a hill or cliff face on purpose. He's half convinced that, if she truly fell, Andraste would catch her and make her fly.

Footfalls outside his tent catch his attention, and he twitches the flap aside.

It's the Inquisitor, bathed in starlight, her face in shadow as she looks down at the oasis pool. A more Fade-touched romantic setting Blackwall can't imagine, and he battles with himself over it. Over whether to go to her, or to go back inside his tent, and pretend he never saw her.

He hears her sigh, the sound almost lost in the sound of the waterfall. He steps out into the night.

She turns at the sound of his approach, and gives him a sad smile.

“Good evening, Blackwall.”

“Beautiful night,” he says, clearing his throat, looking up at the stars through the towering outcrops of rock.

“It is,” she says. “A beautiful night.”

“May I ask... is something bothering you, my lady?”

A laugh bubbles up from her throat. “No, just... I was just enjoying some time alone. It's hard to be alone, out on the road.” She rubs her hand up and down her arm to rid herself of the evening chill. “It's strange... When I was home, with my clan, I was never alone. There was always someone there. But I never felt as if I needed solitude. If there was ever a time I needed some quiet, I could walk out into the forest. But now... there's so many people, all the time. Everyone always needs everything. I'm so lucky at Skyhold, that they gave me that tower room.” She sighs deeply, as if inhaling the crisp mountain air. “I love that room. I love sitting out on the balcony like a falcon sits on a column of air, high above, in the quiet.”

He stands silent for a moment, letting the peace of the night settle above them. “I'm glad you're able to find some moments to yourself at Skyhold, my lady. You, er, have a particular fondness for heights, I take it?”

“There are shape-changer mages, you know that? They could be a falcon if they wanted,” she said, speaking as if she hadn't heard him. “Asha'bellanar can turn into a dragon, they say. I've been reading Varric's book, and he says he _met_ her, when Hawke went to return her amulet to the mountain. And that she turned into a dragon, and flew away.”

“I'm not sure we should believe everything Varric writes, my lady,” he says, trying to be tactful.

The Inquisitor shoots him an amused look. “Are you not a fan of Varric's, Blackwall?”

He shrugs, and folds his arms across his chest. “Some of it I like, my lady. I'm just not sure the Tale of the Champion is as truthful as he claims.”

“What of his have you read?” She grins. “Swords and shields?”

Swords and Shields, Swords and Shields... Which one was that? It wasn't the... the _romance_ , was it? From the devilish look the Inquisitor is giving him, it must be. He feels his cheeks grow warm and is glad the darkness hides his blush.

“ _Not_ that one, my lady.”

“Shame,” she says, looking back towards the water. “Parts of it are rather good. It's no match for the _Randy Dowager Quarterly_ , but still.”

They are silent a while, standing there with the moonlight glinting on the water. The sense of jocularity dissipates into the air, leaving them cold again.

Finally, Blackwall clears his throat.

“I wish you weren't so cavalier with your safety,” he says, closing his eyes so he can't see her face. He knows this will annoy her. “The way you treat heights... If you slipped and fell...”

Her grip on his arm is unexpected, and stronger than he would have guessed. He opens his eyes to see a look of accusation on her face.

“ _Cavalier?_ ” She gestures to the camp around them, lowering her voice to an angry whisper. _“_ You think this whole Inquisition is a game to me?”

“Of course not,” he hisses back, turning to grab her forearm in one hand, hard enough to bruise. “But you're putting yourself in danger for no good reason. One misstep and you're splattered across the rocks below. Have you _any idea_ what it does to me to see you walking out on ledges like some suicidal fool?”

She jerks her arm away from him, her face unreadable.

“You gave up the right to speak to me like that,” she says, her voice low, “the day we spoke on the ramparts.”

“My lady – ”

“If you care about me, Blackwall, if you _want_ me – then do something about it. Don't push me away with one hand, and pull me close with the other.”

He does pull her close, then, his hand at her back, his arm like steel around her waist, fingers at her throat, pressed against her collarbone. But he hesitates. Her face is impassive, challenging: her chin lifted, her eyes flashing.

He swallows, and lets her go. He steps back, and turns away; he cannot look at her. Cannot see himself weighed in her gaze, knowing that he will not measure up.

“No,” she says, bitterly. “I didn't think so.” She sighs, then, and the hard edge leaves her voice. He still can't look at her face. “For what it's worth, Blackwall... I'm still here, if you change your mind. But change it soon. I won't wait forever.”

He hears the rustle of canvas, and knows she has returned to her tent. He stands alone in the desert night, counting out his sins.  
  


 


	27. Her Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes friends it is finally time. I give you: the TOWER SCENE.

He goes to her tower, to beg her to end it.

He has gone back and forth on it so many times. He can lie, and keep her. No, he must end it, must stay away, she deserves better. But then she smiles again and he is telling himself it will all be all right. Making excuses. Lying to himself.

He is weak. So weak. He cannot stay away from her any more than he could cease breathing. So he will beg her. Beg her to put an end to this.

He goes to her tower that night, after one too many drinks in the tavern. When he's there he feels wrong, an intruder in her private space, so he steps out onto the balcony to wait.

Most days she retires late, after spending time with the others, and reads letters and writes replies and enjoys her solitude for a short while. Tonight she slips up the stairs with a heavy sigh, and is stretching her arms above her head when she notices him, leaning against her balcony door.

She grins at him. “I knew you couldn't stay away.”

He sighs, and shakes his head at his own damned weakness.

“No, I couldn't. If only you knew how _confounding_ you are,” he says, “how _impossibly_ infuriating.”

Her smile slips a little. He wants to light it up again. To touch her face and make her happy, to – to –

“I wanted to thank you for accompanying me to that ruin,” he says, moving towards her, every step setting his heart pounding. “I wanted to...” He sighs, and she's so close now, “I just had to see you...”

They come together, finally, moving towards each other in slow motion, and then their lips touch. He has a moment of joy, like a knife to the heart, and she opens her mouth to him and the knife turns black in his chest. He steps back, shaking his head, breath coming fast.

“No. No, this is wrong. I shouldn't even be here.”

“Blackwall...” She gives him one of those gentle smiles, soft as new snow, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. “It doesn't feel wrong. Not to me.”

It's hard to hold her gaze. His eyes keep slipping away.

“I want to give in,” he says. “Maker knows how _much_ I wish I could. But I'm not what you want. I could never – I could never be what you deserve.”

She looks wounded, and he's about ready to throw himself on his knees and beg her to forgive him, just forgive him, for existing and ever making her anything but happy.

“You're wrong,” she says, lifting a hand so that her fingertips just graze his cheek. “You're a good man.”

“Am I?” He chokes out something that is almost a laugh. There is nothing he wants more than to be a good man. To be a good man _for her_. But he's not.

“You are,” she says. “ _I_ see it, even if you don't.”

He shakes his head again. “There is  _ nothing _ I can offer you. I have no money, no standing. You'd have no life with me. But I...” He takes a shuddering breath. “I need you. To end this. Because I can't.”

There. It's said. He lays his heart before her, and hopes she ends it swiftly.

“No,” she says softly. “I'm not letting you go.”

He closes his eyes, briefly. Sends a silent prayer to the Maker, in thanks or in supplication he isn't sure.

“We'll regret this, my lady,” he says, stepping forward, so close, so close.

_Please, don't... don't let her have cause to regret this._

She leans back to look at him, strokes fine fingers through his beard. With a twitch of her lips, she steps up on her toes, and kisses him. So gentle, like petals in a spring breeze.

“Do you regret that?” she asks as she settles back on her feet. Her voice is low, a soft purr that reaches down into his breeches.

He is a weak man.

He claims her lips then, tongue in her mouth, his hand twisting in her hair as he backs her across the room. She hums in appreciation, her arm around his neck, and then suddenly she squeaks as he backs her up against the stairs.

“Be careful,” she says, voice a breathless whisper. “You'll have us over, and the Inquisition will have to find another way to close rifts.”

He chuckles, face pressed against the warm silk of her hair.

“Maker's breath, you drive me mad, woman,” he growls. “Do you know how long I've wanted to kiss you like that?”

“You've been doing a remarkable job of keeping your self-control, then,” she says, still breathless. She grins. “Why did you?”

It's an innocent question but it jars him. He doesn't want to start thinking about that again, about all the reasons to hold back. He wants to  _ stop _ thinking, to lose himself in her. He bends and grabs her behind her knees, hoisting her up so that she can circle her legs around his waist and he can carry her, teeth nipping at her throat, to press her up against a wall.

The throat-nipping seems to please her. She makes little sounds, little  _ mews _ , gasping and clawing at the back of his neck. They're  _ beautiful _ , the sounds she makes. He wants to hear them all. He runs his tongue along the scar on her jaw, his hand on her thigh, her fingers tugging at the neck of his gambeson.

A knock on the door shocks him back to reality like a bucket of cold water. He drops her legs to the floor, raising his head.

“Who is it?” she calls out, and he looks down at her, and she's dishevelled, her lips red, _Maker_ he wants to kiss her again, but she presses her fingers to his lips and shakes her head.

“It's Josephine! I am so sorry, Inquisitor, but a bird just came – you need to see this...”

“I'll be right down, Josie. I was dressing for bed.”

“Very well, Inquisitor, we will be waiting for you in the war room. Sorry to have had to disturb you...”

“Well then,” the Inquisitor says, as Josephine's footsteps fade. “I suppose we will have to continue this another night.”

Blackwall can't trust himself to say anything. He traces a finger along her bottom lip, and regrets it when she takes it in her mouth and sucks it gently.

“Leave after I do,” she says. “Wait a bit. Enjoy the view. No sense in giving the gossip-mongers anything more to talk about.”

Like the raging erection he's sporting. He can see her point. He just doesn't want to let her go.

But the Inquisitor knows her duty, and he can't imagine keeping her from it.

 

 


	28. "My Lady"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to have interrupted things in the last chapter. It was hard to do, but it didn't seem to be quite the right time for it. Hopefully you'll forgive me later. In the meantime, here is some fluff. Now we're through the first lot of angst, it will ease off a bit until later. I'm nowhere NEAR writing that part yet. But the semester is almost over and I'll soon have more time to dedicate to playing video games and writing fic for the internet. ♥

He can love her now, openly. He feels like he has the sun in his chest, filling him so full of light and warmth he might burst.

He watches her now with open affection, every move of her hand, every tilt of her head. The sound of her voice takes on such a musicality for him that often he loses track of what she's said, and has to ask her to repeat herself.

There never seems to be time enough to spend with her. She is so _busy_. But he can't resent the Inquisition for it, or her for doing her duty. In fact he loves her all the more, for doing what is needed before coming to him for a kiss and a chat, or curling up with a book on a pile of straw, or some letters perhaps, content to simply spend time in his presence.

In these moments, he likes to dote on her. If she's reading, he'll rub the tension from her shoulders, kissing the top of her head as she relaxes back against him. Sometimes she'll ask his advice, and he'll give it as best he can. He loves the tiny scar on her nose, the delicate swirl of her tattoos, the way she nods so solemnly when she considers his advice.

On the road, or elsewhere around Skyhold, they are more prudent. It's all soft glances and lingering touches. They know, of course. The others. She will have told some of them, and others will have found out some way or another. Varric keeps grinning at him. He has tried warning the man off with a scowl, but that seems to make things worse.

“You still call me that,” she says to him one day, small nose wrinkling. They are walking along Skyhold's ramparts, keeping close to the wall. “You've had your tongue in my mouth and your hand up my shirt, and you still call me _my lady_.”

“I haven't had my hand up your shirt!”

“Oh, haven't you?” She smirks to herself. “Perhaps that was just a dream I had, then.” She shoots him a grin, and then laughs at his expression.

“You will have to tell me about this dream, my lady,” he says, catching her in a hug and kissing the side of her neck.

She giggles, taps him on the cheek,  _ not in public! _ , and he lets her go with a grin.

“You don't mind it, do you?” he asks her. “I know before...”

She shakes her head. “I've grown used to it, now,” she says. “In fact I... I quite like it.” She turns her face to the blue skies above. “It makes me feel as if you would go to the ends of the world for me.”

“I would. Of course I would,” he says, taking her hand and kissing it. “You have only to ask, my lady.”

She tilts her head to one side, her forehead furrowing. “And what about me? I feel as if the only things you ask me, I have done the opposite. You ask me to stay away, and I do not. You ask me to end it...”

He shakes his head, pressing his lips to her hand with greater fervour. “No, my lady, you have done so much for me. You have gone out of your way to help me track down old Warden sites. You came with me to the... the place on the Storm Coast, when it was foolish of me to take you there. You have always listened to me with greater understanding than I have ever deserved.”

“Then you forgive me? For not turning you away?”

He presses his lips to her hand again. He does not trust his voice not to crack.

“I'll take that as a yes,” she says.

 

 


	29. Crestwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall you're such a LIIIIIARRRR

Crestwood is giving him anxiety.

It doesn't help that the Inquisitor is in a bad mood. She hadn't liked Crestwood to begin with, even before they found out about the bloody great rift in the lake. Soaked through and sulking, she'd wanted to get to Stroud and get out again as soon as possible.

Now she finds herself fighting undead and bandits and demons, and the mayor of the town isn't exactly helpful.

“Ohhh, be careful, Inquisitor! We can't have you risking your life on _bandits_ ,” she says in a sing-song voice, stomping through the mud. “Arsehole. Why is everything always so damn _difficult?_ ”

A bolt of lightning hits the ground in front of them, and they jump back in shock.

“Have I mentioned,” says the Inquisitor, “how much I _hate_ this place?”

The feeling is mutual. Though, the mood she's in, Blackwall is half-convinced himself it's her magic drawing the lightning to her. He's seen her call it down out of a blue sky, so why not? He is trying his damnedest not to bother her further, and tries to appear less tense than he is.

But he can't blame her. Crestwood is a certified shithole. He should have made some excuse and stayed back at camp.

They meet a couple of Wardens on the road, searching for Stroud. He keeps quiet, his jaw tight with nerves, as they chat with the Inquisitor. If he just doesn't say anything, maybe they won't notice him.

And these are just some random Wardens, busy at their duties. Stroud might be more attentive. He's glad there are some bandits around to take his problems out on.

The Inquisitor seems to feel the same way. She is brutal as they take the keep, fighting as furiously as she ever has, swearing in Elvish throughout. When they triumph, the chieftain falling, she stomps across the keep to fly the Inquisition banner, and finally, sighs in relief.

“Thank Andruil that's bloody done,” she says. “Come on. Let's see what goodies these dirt-bags have on them.”

With one thing and another, they end up getting further and further sidetracked. Now the bandits are dealt with, but they find some Red Templars and have to take care of them. Then the Inquisitor feels they may as well drain the lake. Finally, they trek through the cave system, and close the massive rift underneath.

Blackwall's happy for it. It's a relief to throw himself fully into the fighting, to take his mind off the impending awkwardness that the meeting with Stroud will no doubt involve.

But they can't put it off forever.

When they come up out of the caves, the storm has cleared up. The clouds have parted; it is sunny, at long bloody last. He can even see the Frostbacks, towering white-capped in the distance. Crestwood looks almost pleasant.

The Inquisitor's mood, thank Andraste, has cleared with the storm, and she leads the way towards their meeting point with Hawke with her arms spread wide and her face turned towards the sun. And she sings. Loudly. And with exuberance. And not entirely in key.

“I can see cle-EAR-ly now the rain has gone!”

“Inquisitor, _please_.”

“I can see ALLLL obstacles in my way!”

“I'm going to have you murdered in your sleep.”

She grins. “Oh, come on, Varric! Sing with me! You know the words.”

“I really don't. And I wish _you_ didn't.”

She stops her singing, but her mood has lifted, and Blackwall finds himself breathing a sigh of relief. Yes, the hard part is yet to come, but the tense atmosphere has gone, and he feels he can deal with it now.

They find Hawke outside a cave not too far from the keep. He's not entirely sure about Hawke. She seems to have the ability to communicate with Varric without need for words, which unnerves him. He's read the Tale of the Champion, of course, but he doesn't believe most of it. Varric swears the entire thing is true, but he'd swear the sky was green and have a tavern full of people believing it.

The Inquisitor mentions to Hawke that they'd seen Wardens on the road, hunting her friend Stroud.

“Yes, I saw them,” the Champion replies. She sighs, and leads the way into the cave. “How much blood is shed by good men following bad orders?”

Blackwall's face twitches. _No small amount, Hawke._

They make their way to the back of the cave, past old bloodstained banners of a Blind Men smuggler outpost. Blackwall takes slow breaths to keep himself calm. He must remember he is here to guard the Inquisitor. _He_ is trusted, not this Stroud fellow. He will be fine.

Thank the Maker and Andraste both: Stroud is more interested in answering questions than asking them. He's actually a pretty good source of information. Blackwall memorises every titbit he can, particularly his description of the Calling.

It's a disturbing description, no doubt, and the Inquisitor's eyes immediately come to rest on his face, though how much she can see of it in the shadows is a mystery.

“Do you hear the Calling?” she asks, almost accusatory. She'd have expected him to tell her something like this, and he feels a chill.

“I do not fear the Calling,” he says, forcing himself to sound confident, almost arrogant. “Corypheus's tricks only serve to strengthen my resolve.”

He congratulates himself on his little half-truth. It is, after all, true that he does not fear the Calling. But the satisfaction is bitter. Concern still lines the Inquisitor's face, and he has to look away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least it's not the Fallow Mire.
> 
> The Inquisitor's song is Jimmy Cliff's "I Can See Clearly" and the Inquisitor is singing it as obnoxiously as possible.


	30. "I Am Loyal"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping things up in Crestwood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated this in a little while! I had some work to do finishing off the semester. But it's break time now and I can spend some more time on this!

She comes to him, when they return to the Keep to rest before heading back to Skyhold.

He is sitting up near the flagpole, the Inquisition's flag fluttering in the wind above. She draws near, and touches his arm.

“You've been hearing the Calling?”

He takes her hand from his arm, and squeezes it gently before letting go. “I know what Corypheus is,” he says. “He has no sway over me.”

_That's not a lie_ , he tells Guilt. It does not stop the voice shouting  _Liar!_ in his mind. 

It also does not answer her question.

“I can't believe you didn't tell me,” she says, emotions warring in her eyes: doubt, anger, worry. She paces, wringing her hands. “You showed me that song. It was so sad... We were talking about the Calling, you _could have told_ me. I thought you would've... and even when you came to ask me to end it, you didn't _tell_ me.” She turns to him, her eyes widening as an understanding settles over her. “That's _why_ you asked me to end it. You were hearing the Calling, and you didn't want...” She looks away, face twisting. “You didn't want to love me, and then leave.”

Blackwall swallows against the tightness in his throat, and reaches for her. “I just – I didn't want you worrying...”

“Did you know it was Corypheus?”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, unsure what to say. _What if I was really hearing the Calling?_ He thinks. _What would I have done?_

The answer is easier than he thought. And closer to the truth.

“I wasn't sure,” he says. “But I didn't want to leave the Inquisition. I would rather die here, with you, than throw my life away in the Deep Roads. There are always more darkspawn. This is more important.”

Her gaze is steady, but her eyes are glinting with tears.

He takes her hand again, presses it between both of his, and raises it to his mouth to kiss her fingers.

“I swear to you, I am loyal to the Inquisition. I won't be running off to practise blood magic or get my throat cut. You needn't worry. I'm not going anywhere.”

“I wasn't worried about that,” she tells him, her eyes locked on his. “I know you wouldn't leave like that. I just... you _should_ have told me.”

He reaches out and gathers her close. “Aye, I should have told you.”

She sniffles against him, her fingers twisting around the leather straps of his armour. He realises she must be exhausted.

“The nightmares... it must be horrible,” she says. “Those things Stroud said... You could have said something. I don't want you – I don't want _anyone_ – suffering silently. You know you can confide in me?”

He cannot say anything to that, torn between the certain knowledge that he cannot ever truly confide in her, and the tender emotion her concern for him stirs in his chest.

“Please, don't worry about me, my lady,” he says, resting his chin on her hair. “I'd tell you if anything were wrong.”

_Liar._

 


	31. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soft squishy chapter full of fluff.

She comes to him often.

They don't have much time alone – she works so hard: long hours in consultation with her advisers, checking on her people, making her judgements. They have more time together on the road, where they can ride side by side and talk, or take walks together while the others rest at camp.

He treasures their time together, at Skyhold or in their travels over Thedas. He is aware of just how lucky he is. Not one moment is undervalued.

They are sitting together under the stars in a quiet corner of the ramparts, when he finally whispers, “I thought you were dead.”

She lifts her head from his shoulder to look at him, but he keeps his eyes on the stars.

“What?”

He shifts, pulling her a little tighter against him. “After Haven. You were – I thought you were dead.”

She nestles back down against him, putting her arm across his chest. “I wasn't.”

He doesn't know how to reply to that. All he can do is tighten his grip on her and promise the Maker impossible things if it means he never has to let her go.

He realises her hand is clutching at his gambeson spasmodically, and he looks down at her. Her eyes are downcast, her brows pulled together.

“It was cold,” she says at length. “I fell through some sort of – through the roof of some ancient mine shaft, or something. It was luck. Pure luck. I woke up and it was all over. I just... walked out of the cave, and into the snow. And the _wind_ ,” her fist tightens, “it was freezing. It cut right through me. I thought, I have to keep moving. If I stay still, I'll die. And I was so tired. I couldn't summon so much as a flame. But there was – you'd dropped something, the Inquisition, some barrel that had broken. All the footsteps had been covered by snow, but I made a guess, and then I found a fire with ice in the ashes. I was so tired, and so cold.”

She shivers, as if feeling the cold again, and he pulls her closer still, wrapping his arms around her thin shoulders.

“Well you're here now,” he says, his voice gruff. “I won't leave you. You'll never be alone in the snow again.”

She huffs a quiet laugh, breath warm against the side of his throat. “I'm not afraid of that,” she says. “I'd walk through that blizzard a thousand times if I had to.”

He looks down at her, so small and delicate curled up against his side.

“I know you would,” he says softly. “I never knew a stronger woman.”

Her face is turned away, her fingers picking at the cloth of his gambeson.

“You think I'm special,” she says, at last, almost echoing his words from what seems like so long ago. “I'm not. So I have this mark, maybe I'm touched by the Creators, I don't know. But anyone could do this thing, if they had to. Lead the Inquisition. I know they could. I watched you die, in the Dark Future. You could do this. You're brave, and strong. You'd do a better job than me.”

“I'm not,” he says, his voice choking. “I couldn't.” He gathers her up, and presses his face into the crook of her neck.

Surprised, she's still for a moment, and then her arms circle around him, and she's stroking his hair, murmuring to him in Elvish.

“ _Atisha, ma'arlath. Atisha_.”

He doesn't know these words, but he takes comfort in them, in her. In her smooth skin under his cheek, her warm body in his arms. The sweet softness of her voice.

“I love you,” he mumbles against her shoulder.

“I know,” she says, her cheek against his hair. “I love you too, Blackwall.”

 

 


	32. Steel and Leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Exalted Plains. For your gratification, I have skipped over the corpse-burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, at this point, we've done most of the Big Scenes for a while. I'm not wanting to rush through the game in my play-through, which I am doing as I write (though I have a nice buffer of chapters for the moment). But a lot of the smaller ones, like a half-dozen different things that happen at Halamshiral, are important for Character Development i.e. angst. I've tried to intersperse Plot with a few scenes of Travelling About Doing Stuff that one inevitably does in the game. There are lots of little asides and character banter that I think bring a lot to DA:I's story as well as to my little addition to the fandom, so I'm throwing some of them in there. 
> 
> And don't moan about filler chapters because some of them have sex in them. 
> 
> Not this one. But SOME of them.

The Dales are like places of pilgrimage for her.

In the Exalted Plains her expression twists as she reads monuments to the Exalted Marches, but her face shines with joy as she finds artefacts and monuments of the region's Elven past. She points out things that take her interest, and stops their party by the statue of a deer to tell them all the story of Andruil and the first halla.

The halla, Maker! She _loves_ those things. They are smaller than the ones that pull her own clan's aravels, she remarks, but being around so many other Dalish is a gift for her. And she is different, among them. She speaks Elvish to them, gives them all she can, and when a young man tells of how he admires her and would so love to join the Inquisition she makes it her mission to get him to Skyhold.

Blackwall thinks perhaps another Dalish elf in the stronghold will help her feel less lonely, and decides to make it _his_ mission, too.

Some places here are beautiful, and she delights in every sight and sound. Other places are war-torn, and her grief is tangible. They narrowly avoid a dragon – to the Iron Bull's disappointment – and nearby they find a shrine to some elven god she will not name. Instead she shakes her head, will not speak of it, but she bows to the shrine all the same. “Just in case.”

She comes to him when they make camp, with a grin and some papers in her hands.

“I traded for these at the Dalish camp,” she tells him. “I don't know _how_ they came by them. What do you think?”

He takes the papers from her, and blinks at them in surprise. Warden armour.

“How did they find these?” he wonders aloud with a laugh.

“I _love_ the design,” she says, tapping at the enchanter mail. “Do you think it would suit me? Do you think the Wardens would mind?”

He laughs, and picks her up by the waist to spin her around. “I should think they wouldn't. And you'll look very fine, my lady. You always do.”

She gives him a smile that feels like a blessing, and kisses his cheek. “I'll have to get one made up when we get back to Skyhold. And some Warden armour for you – what do you think? I was thinking darker leather, maybe something in red...?”

“I'll leave it to you, my lady.”

She is true to her word. A new set of armour is sent to him at the barn, forged in steel and dark red leather. Warden armour.

He runs his fingers over the metal with a deep sense of awe. This is _his_. His armour. Warden armour. Forged for him alone.

Hers is in blue, to match her eyes and the dark vallaslin on her face. Deep, rich blue, with steel in a shining silver. She wears it to the barn one day, eyes sparkling with anticipation.

She asks if he likes it, with a pirouette.

He has no words. He tells her with a kiss.

His hands roam down over steel and leather and soft cloth, and when he pulls away to rest his forehead against hers, the words come to him.

“No highborn maid has ever worn anything so fine.”

She stands on her tiptoes to kiss him again, reaching up her hands to cup his face.

He chuckles to feel her fingers curl through his beard. “I suppose I should stop wondering whether the beard puts you off.”

She chuckles back. “Whyever did you think it would?”

“Well... Elves don't grow beards, do they?”

“That's why I like it,” she says, her eyes glittering with mirth or lust or both. “You are _very_ hairy. Like a _beast_.” She bares her teeth. “Grrrr.”

He growls back, grabbing her to him and nibbling along her neck in a way that makes her squeak.

“ _Not_ in the middle of the stables!” she gasps, pushing him gently away. “Kisses are one thing, but if you start with _that_ we'll _both_ get carried away. We _do_ have an audience, you know.”

Blackwall thinks Skyhold's denizens are rather commendably ignoring them, but he understands her point. So he steps back – regrettably – and lets her go, smiling at the smouldering look she shoots him over her shoulder.

 _Maker_ , that woman.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was sending my Inquisitor to kiss Mr Wardenpants here basically every time I went back to Skyhold, because I discovered if you avoid people for a while they actually notice. Which is neat. So anyway, after having been back several times in quick succession he says "I guess I should stop wondering if the beard puts you off." Ohhh my god. Also, I HAD NEVER NOTICED that none of the elf men had beards. Maybe some of them DO, and I just can't think of any. But it was interesting - would it be weird for a person if you'd grown up mostly surrounded by smooth-cheeked men and then suddenly a man turns up with a massive beard? See, this shit is why I have to write all these intervening chapters. I want to EXPLORE that. 
> 
> And it made me wonder, does he say that beard line to a dwarf Inquisitor? Who presumably is much more at home in the beard department....
> 
> Anyway....
> 
> Also a note on the halla, MAN they shrank. I mean, I want to assume wild halla are just naturally smaller and aravel-pulling halla are bred to be much larger, but I don't think... like, I always got the impression that the halla aren't domesticated, they're just there because they have a *special bond* or whatever. And the clan in the Exalted Plains didn't have any larger ones hovering around. How do their tiny halla pull those big aravels? Anyway. I can only assume that halla in Ferelden are naturally beefier or something.


	33. Nobles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halamshiral, part one.

Halamshiral. Oh, Andraste, why had he agreed to this?

Well, he'd agreed because she'd asked him – blushing just a little, in the barn, _would you come to the ball with me?_ – and he couldn't say no. But now he's surrounded by Orlesian nobles, wearing silk and satin, and trying to pick out liars.

At least that part isn't too hard. They are _all_ liars.

He has never felt so bloody awkward.

He's uncomfortable in satins and silks. They seem to suit everyone else well enough. Maybe not Sera, who doesn't look at home in anything without at least one tear in it. Bringing her along must be the Inquisitor's idea of a joke, though precisely who it's on is anyone's guess.

Varric, of course, somehow manages to look dashing. Blackwall tries not to feel jealous. The dwarf has even accumulated a small fan club. If they had books with them, he'd be signing autographs.

He does not even want to _look_ at Cullen. He respects the man far too much to allow himself to feel that much jealousy for him. When he finally catches sight of the man, he's surrounded by young women with an expression of panic on his face, and that, at least, makes Blackwall smile with sympathy.

“You look rather handsome.”

Surprised, he turns and meets the Inquisitor's eyes. The last trace of his scowl melts away.

“I, uh – You look beautiful, my lady.”

She blushes, and lowers her eyes. “It's not my usual garb,” she says, picking at the red satin. “I would have preferred a simple dress, or something. But Josie says we must look the part, and this is what soldiers wear, so...”

Her voice trails off. A group of nobles behind them are talking, and their voices carry in the night air. The words “elven savage” and “what was the Duke thinking?” are audible.

Blackwall feels his hands curl into fists.

If he had a sharp tongue like Leliana, he'd skewer them. But he doesn't, not one that could spar with the likes of this lot, and blood on the dance floor could lose them everything. All he can do is put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze.

“I'm sorry you had to hear that,” he says, glowering at the group over her shoulder.

She shrugs it off. “It's not important,” she says airily. “Come on. Let's go inside.

The poor girl. A Dalish elf, who had presumably rarely been in a building bigger than an aravel before joining the Inquisition, and now she's in an imperial palace, jousting with her wits against people who have been doing it their whole lives. How she manages is beyond him. It's all _he_ can do to keep from punching someone.

Once inside, he finds himself a place to hover, pretending to read the inscriptions on statues, avoiding the nobles who flit to and fro with canapés in hand, and trying to overhear something useful.

A nobleman corners him, all the same. He can't see the man's eyes through the mask. He thinks he can shoo the man away easily enough, answer whatever Warden questions he has, but the lord tilts his glass at him, and shakes his head.

“No, I swear I know you from somewhere. Ah! Lord Rudalt de Lancre... I've seen you in his company before, no?”

_Oh, **fuck**_ _no. Sweet Andraste, save me..._

“I don't believe we've met, my lord,” says Blackwall, smothering his panic and shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “I'm just a Grey Warden. Nothing more.”

“No, I swear it. Your face is so familiar... Around the eyes, especially... Perhaps, without that beard?” The noble taps a finger against his lip in thought. “Bah. More wine! It will come to me.”

The lord wanders off, and Blackwall can breathe again, until he notices the Inquisitor has been listening, and has cocked her head to one side.

“Did you know him?” she asks, drawing close.

“No, my lady. Just some drunk lord, thinking I was someone else.”

This seems to satisfy her. She nods, then looks up at him through her lashes, smiling. “Do you suppose you could save a dance for me?”

At least there was one silver lining to this whole buggering experience.

“All of them,” he replies.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed bringing Blackwall along to the party. He really seemed to hate it. But then when you catch that one guy talking with him, you realise maybe he's met some of these people, and he's actually spending the whole time shit scared that someone's going to recognise him. On top of hating all the lying and so on. 
> 
> He seems so pissed off when you talk to him, all "I hate this party and everyone in it", but then you ask him to dance, and he's like... still angry, but in this sort of fiercely passionate way. It was totally hot.


	34. The Imperial Palace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halamshiral, part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not happy with this chapter. It's things that need to be written in order to get to the end-of-the-ball scene so here they are.

After their introduction to the court, she finds him again, her face alight.

“Silverite Wings of Valour! You never told me about that!” she says. “What did you win them for?”

“For _valour_ ,” he snaps at her.

She visibly flinches at that, and he curses himself for it. It was not wrong of her to ask, but _Maker_ , he can't stand the shame of it.

The _shame_. When he had stepped forward as the man had called out his name, had recited the name and titles of a man he was not... Maker save him. The Silverite Wings of bloody Valour. He hadn't even known.

He's in a mood, and that's only part of it. After the conversation with the nobleman, he feels sure someone is about to step out of the shadows and reveal his past. The whole court had seen him. Surely one of them will know?

He's twitchy, and hopes the Inquisitor can get around to doing whatever it is she's doing so they can bloody kill things.

She comes for him not long after. They pick up their stashed weapons and armour, and slip through into the servant's quarters. He had not expected the bodies – the poor sods, half the servants killed – and there are assassins and Venatori behind every other door.

The tension doesn't leave him. This is no simple fight. It's layered. He hates this place and its lies, its scheming. He wants the purity of a straight fight, blood and pain, honour and duty.

They are sifting through papers in the royal apartments, when the Inquisitor's hand starts to glow. A rift, _in the imperial palace_. Had it always been here? Is this why the wing is closed? Or was it created by one of the Venatori?

They burst through the door, to find a courtyard full of demons.

The Duchess greets them from a balcony above, snipes at them in her passive-aggressive voice, and Blackwall boils with rage. This woman – this lying, scheming, _murderous_ woman – had been _dancing with the Inquisitor_. The knowledge that she could have stabbed her the whole time they were on the dance floor infuriates him more than he would have thought possible.

He realises, as he despatches demons with a practised ease, that he's angry at _himself_ , not just the woman in the mask. He hadn't seen the danger. He hadn't _known_. He should have known. It eats at him.

But the demons are killed, the rift is sealed, and the Inquisitor is bloody unflappable. In moments, she has untied the mercenary they had protected, and acquired his help against the Duke.

There is no time to be impressed. The bells are ringing. The Empress will be giving her speech. The Duchess must be stopped.

They run.

 

 


	35. Their Dance

The Duchess is dead, the Duke is for the scaffold, and no one seems to know or care what is going to happen to the scheming elf. The Empress is radiant, and her people are celebrating, but Blackwall can't find the Inquisitor in the crowd.

He tracks her down to a balcony above the garden, sighing into the cool night air.

She's leaning against the marble balustrade, one foot tucked behind her other ankle, her shoulders hunched. She looks as if she hasn't slept in a week.

He slips over to lean his own forearms against the cold stone, and smiles at her.

“You should be enjoying the party,” he says. “Are you all right?”

She sighs again. “I'm just tired,” she says. “It's been a long night.”

“That it has,” he says. But the music is still playing, and the night air is still, and she'd asked him earlier to save her a dance, hadn't she?

He steps back, and bows, offering a hand.

“May I have this dance, Lady Lavellan?”

Her smile is a desert oasis. She puts her small hand in his. “I'd love to.”

It has been a long time, but the steps never left him, and it is a very fine thing to hold her in his arms and guide her across the floor. She can dance well enough, and she lets him take the lead, placing herself utterly in his hands. Her trust in him makes his knees weak, but his hand stays firm on her back.

“I didn't know you danced,” she says, smiling up at him.

“I did once,” he tells her. “In another life.”

She rests her head against his chest, and their dance slows as he wraps his arms tighter around her and presses his lips against her hair.

“Will you dance with me often?” she mumbles against his shirt as they sway slowly in the night air. “Back at Skyhold, under the stars?”

“As often as you like,” he tells her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: a loooooong chapter that you will enjoy


	36. No Sweeter Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

When they return to Skyhold, she dismounts with a sigh of relief.

“Blessed Sylaise, I'm glad to be home,” she says.

The Inquisition's people flock to them, thrusting papers and scrolls at Josephine, Leliana, or Cullen, before the advisers have even dismounted their horses. With them distracted, the Inquisitor passes her reins to Master Dennet and beats a hasty retreat, calling over her shoulder that she'll be with them when she's had a bath. They barely look up.

She grins at Blackwall, and slips through the crowd to his side.

“I think we have some time,” she says. “I don't suppose I could take you up on that dance?”

“I should love to, my lady,” he says, stroking the nose of his charger. “I'll come to you when we've both had a chance to wash off the dust of the road. I shouldn't like to keep you from your bath. ”

“Actually...” She gives him a shy smile. “I was thinking perhaps you'd like to join me.”

Oh. _Oh_. Maker. Yes.

The look on his face must have given him away, as she smiles and walks backwards away from him.

“I'll have water brought up. You tend to the horses.”

He nods.

He helps the stable master and his men with the tack, but doesn't wait to brush the mounts down himself. Thankfully they're happy to take over, and he doesn't need to give them any excuse beyond that he's tired from the road. When he's sure they're focused on their work, he slips away.

He has butterflies, he realises as he climbs the stairs to her tower. Like a green boy. He grins at himself.

He slows when he reaches the door, and clears his throat. After a moment to gather his nerve, he lifts his hand, and knocks.

“Who is it?”

He clears his throat again. “It's me, my lady.”

“Come in!”

He does. Closing the door behind him, he hesitates... then turns the key in the lock. It wouldn't do to be disturbed.

He climbs the final flight of stairs slowly, and she comes into view, standing in a silk robe with a smile and a faint blush to her cheeks. She's had the tub pulled out in front of the great windows, and items laid out on a small table: soap, washcloths, towels.

“You look prepared,” he says,

Her smile widens. “Get in,” she says, gesturing to the tub.

Blackwall suddenly feels very self-conscious.

“Ah...”

“I'll turn away, if you like,” she says, and demurely turns her back.

Blackwall sheds his clothes, watching her all the while. The silk, beautifully embroidered, clinging to the curve of her back. He's not sure where this is going, or how quickly it's going there, and has to think very stern thoughts to a particular part of his anatomy.

The mountain air is a help. His skin stands up in goosebumps. The chill is exhilarating. He steps toward the tub, and wonders, as he eases into the hot, steaming water, whether both of them will fit. The sides are high, and he leans back against the varnished wood as she turns, her smile even wider than before.

He clears his throat again, and goes for broke. “Won't you join me?” he says, gesturing at the water.

“I will,” she says, stepping forward to pick up the soap. “Soon.”

She circles behind him, and he cranes his neck to see what she's doing until she tuts and drops to her knees to wind her arms around his neck. Her hands slink down across his chest, and he takes a deep breath in.

“You _are_ hairy,” she says, pressing her lips against the side of his neck. “Lots of scars, too.” She runs her finger along one, and then dips the soap into the water and slides it over his skin.

It is deeply pleasant to lie here, with her small hands at work. Blackwall sinks lower in the tub, and closes his eyes with a long sigh. This hadn't been what he expected when he climbed the stairs to her room, but the water is hot and relaxing and the soap smells of oats and honey, and her fingers are roaming down across his chest as she washes him.

“Do I get to wash you, after this?” he murmurs.

“I've washed off the worst of the road already,” she says, “just in case we never managed to get that far. But you certainly can, if you like.”

Blackwall is seized by the sudden desire to reach around and pull her into the tub on top of him, robe and all, but she seems to sense this and rises to kneel in front of him, eyes on his face as she dips the soap into the bath and runs it along his arm.

“I hope you know what you're doing, my lady,” he says, his voice husky.

“Oh, I think so,” she says. She reaches behind for a washcloth, dipping it into the water and sudsing it up with the soap. “Raise your foot, so I can wash your leg.”

He obeys, and watches her with a relaxed smile as she pretends to be absorbed in her task. There's an intimacy to it, and he feels as if this is a gift from her, almost, or perhaps something she has to do for herself. Her washcloth travels down his leg to the line of the water, halfway up his thigh, where she wisely stops and beckons for the other.

When his limbs are clean she returns to his chest. The soap bubbles have dried in his chest hair, and she dips her hands in the water to wet him down again. Her hands roam further this time, wider, the inside of her wrist rubbing across his nipple in a way that makes his breath come faster.

He clenches his fists, and just when he thinks he can't contain himself further, she crawls around the side of the tub to face him.

“Do you think you're clean now?” she asks him, her voice not quite so innocent any longer.

He shakes his head. “Not clean at all, my lady.” Her fingers are running up and down his arm in a way he finds very distracting. “Was _clean_ really what you had in mind?”

She smirks at him, then leans forward, and presses her lips against his.

She would have pulled away, but he reaches his hand behind her head and keeps her there, sitting up to deepen the kiss, and there's a rustle of silk as her robe falls away and he pulls back to find her naked before him.

The breath catches in his throat. She sits back on her heels for a moment, letting him look at her, enjoy the sight of her, and then she moves, standing to slip into the bath, soap in her hand as she moves to kiss him again.

Her skin is soft and warm and everywhere, her breasts pressing against his chest as she wraps her arms around his neck.

He wants this, _Maker_ , he wants this. He slides his hands down to her hips, but then she's pulling away, sitting back, her eyes sparkling.

“I haven't finished washing you _quite_ yet,” she says, brandishing the soap.

He is breathing heavily, and can't find the words to reply, is tempted to just pick her up and carry her to the bed. But then she reaches down to soap up the inside of his thigh.

His breath hitches. “ _Maker_ , woman. You're doing this on purpose.”

“I don't know _what_ you mean, Blackwall,” she says with a smile.

“Sod that,” he says, and sits forward, catching her about the waist and fastening his teeth to the base of her throat.

She groans, dropping the soap into the water, her hand behind his head. His teeth nip her neck where the blood pulses, and the air hisses through her teeth.

“Blackwall,” she says, her voice strangled.

“Yes, my lady?” He lifts a hand to cup her breast, her nipple hard against his palm. He closes his eyes in wordless prayer. She is _perfect_. Maker, Andraste, whoever. Perfect.

“ _I_ was supposed to be the one in charge,” she grumbles, as he kisses his way down her chest.

“You are, my lady,” he says, sucking her nipple between his lips with utter reverence. “You always are.”

She rises, abruptly, and stands before him in the bath. Naked, glorious. The chill of the mountain air hardens her nipples further, and Blackwall sits transfixed.

“Am I?”

“Are you what?” Blackwall murmurs.

She laughs. “In charge? I'm not so sure I am, not when you have that look in your eyes.” She tilts her hips to one side, and Blackwall's eyes fall to rest on the nest of dark curls between her legs. “I was supposed to be getting you clean, and you have me at your mercy.”

“My lady,” he says, standing, “you have _no_ idea what you do to me.”

Her eyes are on his face, her lips parted. “I think I can see very well what I do to you,” she says, and then her hand is on his cock, stroking him with a touch light as a feather, and he growls and picks her up to throw her across his shoulder.

She lets out a squeak of surprise, then laughs as he carries her to the bed and throws her down on the furs.

“You're getting the floor all wet,” she says, spread out on the bed before him.

“Do you think I buggering care?” he asks, his voice thick with lust, and a flash of a grin is his answer. He chases her across the bed, grabbing her ankle and dragging her back towards him as she giggles. Then he is leaning over her, suddenly, staring down into her eyes, and she parts her legs beneath him and reaches up to help guide him into her and _yes, yes, blessed fucking Andraste._

He kisses her, deeply, as he starts to move. He's slow at first, memorising every sensation, the feeling of every inch of her skin, the quiet hitch of her breath. There is no sweeter way to worship her than this. He presses his forehead against hers, and opens his eyes, needing to see her face, to see it twisted in pleasure as she gasps beneath him, clutches around him.

Her eyes fly open, pools of blue, and she raises her hands to his face, murmuring something in Elvish, and Maker he is so _lost_ in her.

He lowers his head to suck at that spot on her neck that drives her wild, and she growls in appreciation, circling her legs around his back and pulling him deeper into herself. He adjusts himself over her, thrusting deeper, faster, his hands in her hair, grunting as his pleasure mounts. She is moaning beneath him, and then with a cry and a strangled _fuck,_ she comes, clenching tight around him, so tight, so warm, so _perfect_ , _Maker, fuck_.

He presses his mouth down on hers, hard and rough, trying to tell her how much she means to him, how much _this_ means, how _fucking good_ it feels to be inside her.

“Shae, blessed Andraste...”

“Come for me,” she whispers, and with another thrust he does, spilling his seed inside her with a shout.

Slowly, slowly, he drifts down from the high of his orgasm, forehead pressed against hers, body heavy upon her, inside her. He can't bring himself to pull out yet. It feels too good to be this close to her.

“ _Emma lath,”_ she whispers, kissing him slow, deep. “Blackwall, _ma vhenan_ , that was perfect.”

He kisses her again, stirring inside her, still unwilling to leave her warmth, but knowing if he doesn't he'll be hard again in no time, and they both need their sleep after the long ride home from Halamshiral. With a sigh of regret, he rolls from her body onto the furs. She rises to retrieve a blanket, and curls up beside him underneath it, and he wraps his arms around her to pull her on top of him, holding her as tight as he can.

He can't look at her, can't find the words, can only hold her and press a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” he murmurs at last, as sleep begins to drift over him. “I love you. Don't leave me.”

She is silent in his arms, and turns her head to press her lips against his chest.

 

 

 


	37. Ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Western Approach (part one)

He is not fond of deserts.

The Forbidden Oasis was all right, with its waterfalls and flowers. The worst part of _that_ place was all the fervent praying he did every time the Inquisitor decided to walk out on some ledge or throw herself off the side of something in search of those bloody shards.

The Western Approach has no waterfalls and no flowers. What it does have is too many bloody hyenas. And a temple ruin where time has stopped.

The Inquisitor and Solas are poking around in some ancient papers, discussing whatever magic is at work here, when Varric starts prodding him again.

Blackwall likes the dwarf... _most_ of the time. He's clever, a good shot, and Blackwall thinks that, deep down, he's a genuinely good person. But he's hard to trust. Everything's about stories with him, and he just _won't_ let up on the “mysterious past” he's decided Blackwall has.

“So, Hero,” Varric says, leaning back against a table. “Let's talk about your dark and troubled past.”

Blackwall shoots him a sidelong look of horror. “Excuse me?”

“You have one, of course,” the dwarf continues leisurely. “Someone dear to you? Someone you failed to save? Or a grave error in judgement, causing too many deaths? I've known a couple people like that. Oooh, maybe a betrayal! That's always good.”

Blackwall grinds his teeth. How the _hell_ does that penetrative little shit manage to work all that out? Like he'd _read_ his bloody past, instead of just writing it in his head.

“No,” he says, voice clipped.

“You've _got_ to give me _something_ ,” Varric complains.

“No, I don't.” He folds his arms across his chest. “This conversation is over.”

“Touchy!”

“Boys, don't fight,” the Inquisitor says, nose still buried in the papers she's found. “If you're bored, you can go see if there are any bodies we haven't looted.”

“I think we're done here, anyway,” says Solas, tucking away some papers inside his elven robes. “Let's go and see what these touchstones unlock.”

The inner sanctum of the ruin contains a spell, held in place by a staff. The spell that holds time still. The staff strikes Blackwall as rather creepy, with its staring skull, but the Inquisitor, eyes wide and shining, let's out an “Ooooooh!” and declares that she must have it.

“Take care, we do not know what will happen when the spell is broken,” says Solas, holding his own staff at the ready.

With great care, the Inquisitor mounts the dais and wraps her hand around the staff.

They jump back as rocks tumble from the ceiling, and sounds of battle come from outside. Time, it seems, has resumed.

“Now all we have to do is fight our way out of a temple full of demons,” Blackwall says, sarcasm dripping.

“Look on the bright side: I'll get to try out my new staff!” The Inquisitor gives him one of her rare grins, and he can't help but smile back.

The battle is tough going, but in the end they manage to get out of it without too much in the way of injuries. Demons dispatched, and rift closed. The Inquisitor is more than happy with her staff, and twirls it in her hands as they made their way out of the temple, admiring the skull and the icy shine her magic brings to life.

She is in what Blackwall tactfully thinks of as one of her more “driven” moods. Instead of going back to camp – Andraste knows, they could use the rest – she insists they press on, find someplace else to set up camp if need be. A short break to drink some potions and slather on some poultices is all they get, and then it's up and down sandy hillsides, in and out of caves, down the side of a gorge and back up again. She has an insatiable bloody curiosity.

It's once they reach the other side of the gorge that Blackwall sees the great monuments in the distance. To his right, the towering Griffin Wing Keep; to the left, the ritual tower where they are to find the Grey Wardens Stroud was tracking.

Beyond these landmarks, he knows, is a great tear in the earth, permanently scarred by the Second Blight.

It feels like a place of pilgrimage, somehow. This is Warden land, Warden history. All around him are memorials to those who fought and died to save Thedas.

“We'll make camp here,” says the Inquisitor, eyeing the ruin they've stumbled upon. “Send up a signal flare, Solas. I'm going to try to climb this thing. There's a ladder; there _must_ be something at the top.”

She disappears around the side of the crumbling tower, but she's back before the Inquisition forces have arrived to make camp, trying to hide her disappointment.

“So what did you find?” Blackwall teases her.

She makes a face. “ _Cheese_.”

He laughs. “Cheese?”

“There was – stop grinning at me – there was a little _person_ on the cheese. There was! A little woman. Carved out of cheese.”

“I almost want to climb up there and have a look,” he gasps between laughter, “but I'd never be able to get up there. You are _covered_ in dust; how many times did you slip when you were trying to climb those boulders.”

“Only a few,” she says, and kicks at his boots before dropping down on the sand next to him. “It's not fair to tease your boss, you know.”

“I shall tease who I like,” he replies.

They sit together quietly, as the day cools and night spreads out across the sky. In the silence before the troops arrive, the desert is supremely peaceful.

“I'd like to go and look at the.... the chasm, where the blight happened,” she says, voice soft.

“Just so long as you don't fall in,” Blackwall replies. “I know what you're like.”

“You worry too much.”

“I know,” he says, as the clank of moving soldiers reaches their ears, “but someone has to.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation between Varric and Blackwall is taken largely verbatim from a party banter. One of the ones I just *had* to include. Varric's internal backstories are one of the things I just love about him. Plus, he was just so on the money and Blackwall SQUIRMS. Heheheh. 
> 
> PS that staff is baller.


	38. Tevinter Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Western Approach, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what I have to do? I have to stop writing the fun angsty chapters I won't be able to post until like months from now and keep writing the less angsty (and therefore less fun) chapters that are still relevant and important from a character and plot development perspective and that I will need to post SOONER and should therefore be DONE.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> I am not really happy with this chapter. I wanted to include it because I wanted to pick at the tangles involved in Blackwall's whole "the Wardens can do no wrong" blind spot. I also really like when the Inquisitor does something badass and he can be all impressed and proud by how she's totally awesome.

They meet Hawke and Stroud at the Tevinter tower.

Blackwall had been torn. He desperately wanted to come, to see the Wardens and find out what they were doing. Maker, even just being _around_ Wardens was enough to get him excited. So long as they didn't ask any prying questions.

Those potential questions are what made him uneasy, but his mind is made up for him when the Inquisitor asks him to come along. Because his “Warden knowledge might be useful”. And Varric comes, of course, because the Inquisitor ensures he gets to spend as much time with his friend Hawke as possible.

It's sweet of her, really. The way she always looks out for people. Always gives them everything she can to make them happy. Perhaps she sees how much that part of him wants to come along. Perhaps it's not about his supposed “Warden knowledge”. Still... it eats at him.

It is mid-morning, and the Wardens are at the old ritual site, as reported. And they have demons.

That part had not been reported.

Blackwall is horrified, beyond shocked, to discover Wardens doing something so... so _stupid_. So _wrong_. Wardens would _never_... No. It's wrong. It's _wrong_.

When Erimond, the oily Venatori bastard, states that this was their _choice_ , he can't contain his revulsion. He blurts out, “That's a lie! The Grey Wardens are heroes, they would _never_ do this sort of thing willingly.”

He is _filled_ with hate for this man. Hate for what he's done to the Wardens; hate for his service to Corypheus and his stupid foolish greed; hate for his arrogant, condescending manner. _Fucking_ Tevinters.

_Just give me one fucking second_ , he thinks, his hands curling into fists.  _One moment, that's all, and I'll wring your blighted neck with my bare hands._

But then Erimond lifts his hand, blazing red, and says to the Inquisitor, “My master has taught me how to deal with you....”

Her mark – the Anchor – flares green, and she drops to her knees, a strangled cry forcing its way between her teeth.

Blackwall takes half a step back; rattled, unsure, shocked out of his reverie of hate. It's _hurting_ her. Through the shock, rage begins to burn inside his chest. He flicks his eyes to Erimond, waiting for a moment, an opening, and knowing with a sudden, sinking feeling that he'll never get past the Wardens in time.

But she rises.

Fighting through the pain, through whatever pressure Erimond's magic is forcing upon her, she raises her hand as if closing a rift. Her mark blazes green, and with the Tevinter halfway through his arrogant speech, she sends him flying.

Blackwall has a half-second in which to feel immense satisfaction before the coward cries “Get them!” and battle is joined.

It doesn't last long, however. The Inquisitor opens a rift above them, and the demons the Wardens had summoned are sucked back where they belong.

The possessed Wardens are quickly dealt with, and as their party sheaths their weapons, the Inquisitor gives them a half-smile.

“Sorry,” she says. “I really _wasn't_ in the mood for fighting demons.”

“We understand entirely, Inquisitor,” Varric says to her.

“The bastard still got away,” says Stroud, “but I know where he's heading. He ran off in the direction of Adamant. We should go there, and talk to Commander Clarel.”

“I don't think they're about to just let us in,” the Inquisitor points out. “We'll need an army.”

“Quite right, Inquisitor. Stroud and I will meet you back at Skyhold, and you can discuss it with your advisers.” Hawke gives her a nod.

“And in the meantime,” the Inquisitor says with a smile, “I want that Keep.”

 


	39. Above the Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Western Approach, part 3

Blackwall takes a long walk, that night.

They had taken the Keep. The man Cullen had sent to run things in the Approach – Rylen, was it? – had brought a force to hold it, and was quickly putting things to rights. But that evening their party had ventured back onto the sands, away from the bustle of repair and setting up.

The last of the light has well and truly faded from the sky by the time he makes it back to camp. He looks up as he nears the circle of light from the fire, and sees she is waiting for him, with a bottle of ritewine in one hand.

“I thought you might need a drink,” she says carefully. “I know what we saw today troubled you.”

“It didn't trouble _you_?” he snaps, and immediately regrets it.

She closes her eyes with a heavy sigh, and as she opens them again he steps forward to cover her hand with his around the neck of the bottle.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I didn't mean to snap at you.”

She gives him a tight smile. “It's been a tough day,” she says. “The Wardens, the demons, the bastards at the Keep...”

“That it has.” He draws her closer, and presses a kiss to her forehead. He rests his cheek against her hair, and sighs.

Her free hand loops around his neck. “So,” she says, “wine?”

“Sounds just what we need,” he says, pulling back.

She leads the way up the side of the ruin, reaching back to help him past the tricky parts, and then up the ladder to the place where she'd found the cheese. The cheese is there, he can't deny that. The little carved figure, too. He laughs, despite himself, as the Inquisitor pushes it aside to clear a space.

“I told you there was cheese,” she says.

They sit together, high above the desert sand, passing the bottle back and forth, saying nothing, each enjoying the other's presence in silence. When the alcohol softens the harsh edges of the day, Blackwall lies down on his back on the stones, and the Inquisitor curls up beside him, her fingers playing with the stray hairs that peek out over the neck of his gambeson.

“Are you happy?” he asks her. “With me?”

She makes a noise at the back of her throat, amused or dismissive, or both.

“Of course I am,” she says, her voice heavy with sleepiness and wine. “I wouldn't be here, if I wasn't.”

He lets his fingers run up and down the curve of her hip, feeling the press of her breasts against his side, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. Even with her here, lying with him under the stars, it's hard for him to believe her.

 

 


	40. "We Love One More Day"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Emerald Graves

“We are the last Elvhen. Never again shall we submit.”

He had thought, when they first arrived in the Emerald Graves, that she would love the place, with its tall trees and green hills. And she does. But her joy is so bitter, so tempered with grief and sadness. _Walk beneath the Vallasdahlen with reverence; remember that each of them once had a name._ He wishes they'd never come here.

He approaches her, the first time they camp. She has been quiet and subdued through their journey, speaking little, stopping to read every monument in silence before mounting her hart and leading them on. He thinks his heart will break for her. He brings her a skin of wine, as she had done for him in the Western Approach. But when she turns her blue eyes to him, she does not see him.

“My lady,” he says, voice soft, “are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Blackwall,” she says. “I wish my clan were here, that's all.” She looks up at the trees, and breathes a sigh.

She hasn't spoken of her clan in a long time. He knows she receives letters from her Keeper, and sends letters in return. She never speaks of them to him. She must miss them a great deal.

Sometimes he wonders what she will do, when this is all over. If they survive. Will she stay with the Inquisition? Or will she return to her clan, travelling through the Free Marches? And what of him – would he even be able to follow her, if she went back to her people?

It's stupid to think on it. The day might never come. Even if the Inquisitor survives this – Maker willing, she will – what are _his_ chances of living through it? No. Best to love her now, and not think about what comes.

And anyway it feels selfish to think about that, when she's surrounded by monuments to the elven dead. He'd never really thought much on it before he'd met her, but now, reading the Andastrian inscriptions they find here makes him feel a little sick. So much death.

He wakes one night to find the bedroll cold. She is no longer curled up beside him, and hasn't been for some time.

His first instinct is panic, but he takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax. What was she going to do, run off into the wilderness and get stepped on by a giant? The Inquisitor is perfectly capable of looking after herself. And she would be coming back.

She wouldn't abandon the Inquisition.

He goes out in search of her anyway, because he can't bring himself to fall asleep without knowing where she is. With a torch, and his hand on his sword, he stops a guard and asks him if he's seen the Inquisitor.

“She went out to speak with the trees,” he says, pointing to the east.

“Speak with the trees?”

The boy shrugs. “Something like that. Some elfy thing.”

“ _Elfy_ thing,” Blackwall says, his tone sour. Andraste's arse, it never fails to bother him how people think of elves. Even among their own soldiers, it's like she's just that bit more _mysterious_.

He heads out into the forest, praying he won't run into any spiders. Or bears. Bloody bears.

Thankfully it's not too long before he hears her voice through the trees. Then a flicker of light: veilfire. He heads towards it, the music of her song soft and sad.

“ _Hahren na melana sahlin_  
_emma ir abelas_  
_souver'inan isala hamin_  
_vhenan him dor'felas_  
_in uthenera na revas_  
_vir sulahn'nehn_  
_vir dirthera_  
_vir samahl la numin_  
_vir lath sa'vunin_.”

“My lady!” he calls, when she finally comes into view.

She looks up, and even in the green light of the veilfire he can see she's been crying. His chest clenches, all the worse because he knows there is nothing he can say.

“It's a funeral song,” she says. “ _W_ _e laugh and cry, we love one more day_ . I don't know what else... I don't know if they even sang that song then. Maybe it means nothing to them. But I had to do _something_. They all _died_.”

He steps forward to catch her as she crumbles, and holds her as she weeps against his chest.

“I don't know why I'm crying,” she blubs. “I never knew them, I'm not their wife or daughter. But they fought so hard... and they all _died_...”

He rubs her back. “There, there, my lady.” He takes her chin in his hand, and tilts her face up to look at him. “Read all the monuments, and learn everything you can. Think of all the tales you'll have of your people to take back to your Keeper.” He hesitates. “This sort of thing is important for Keepers, isn't it?”

She smiles, and reaches up to take his hand in both of hers. She rubs the back of his fingers against her cheek. “It is,” she says, and sighs as she looks around at the trees. “I suppose we'll never take it back. But the graves of our people tower so high above. They will never be able to forget what was done... They will never be able to wipe this place free of us.”

She leads the way back to camp with a new-found air of determination, and Blackwall follows with a smile.

Thank Andraste the Inquisition had found him. There is no other place he can do as much good as he can with her. _For_ her. He shakes his head as he thinks of the man he was then: scared, desperate. So much has changed. She brings a peace with her that swells his heart.

“My lady – wait...”

She stops and turns, the green of veilfire glinting off her hair, utterly ethereal and perfect. He steps forward, and reaches out to take her hands.

“I just... I wanted you to know,” he says, “just how much you mean to me.”

She tilts her head to the side, her forehead creasing. “I know, Blackwall.” She squeezes his hands. “You don't need to say it. I know.”

He steps closer, his palm against her cheek as he bends his head to kiss her. She is so warm, so soft, so _willing_ , and it breaks and remakes him every moment.

When they part, she looks up at him with her big blue eyes and says “Let's not go back to camp just yet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked that they included a little element of the Inquisitor being able to express her feelings re: the elves past. The religious wars thing that you find throughout the EG is really sort of emotional and... kind of gross. Regardless of the elves and their own errors, you know? Anyway. I'm glad they gave you the opportunity to sort of tow the party line on that one.


	41. Good Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot of stuff you can do with the Emerald Graves as a Dalish Inquisitor but I got carried away and instead here's a sex scene

When morning comes, it finds them in one of the old ruins, the stone cold against their naked skin. Blackwall knows he should wake her, but he cannot, instead running his fingers feather-soft down the curve of her waist, marvelling at her in the soft dawn light.

Would they have time to make love again, before they were missed? It's tempting. The idea is particularly attractive because it feels naughty, and he can't help but smile as he lowers his head to kiss the pale skin of her shoulder.

She makes a soft sound, and turns, looking up at him from the marble floor. She gives him a sleepy smile.

“Have you been awake long?”

“Only a few minutes.” Perhaps longer – he wouldn't know, so absorbed he had been in admiring her. “I was wondering if we would have time...”

Her eyes, admiring him in their turn, have drifted downward, and she quirks a smile. “I see you're ready for more.”

“Always, my lady.” He grins at her. “With you, always.”

“All right,” she says, and raises a hand to his shoulder, pushing him gently down to lie on his back. “But this time, I set the pace.”

Under cover of darkness he had pressed her against the wall, swelling with need, desperate to show her with every touch how much she meant to him. He had been rough, and she had met him with equal passion, her nails drawing blood as she grasped his back, his hips, pulling him ever closer, deeper into her.

Now, in the softness of morning, they are slow, gentle, purposeful. She touches him with conscious deliberation, tracing the lines of his musculature, teasing her fingers through the hair on his chest, his arms, the dark line that runs down his belly to his groin.

He tries to mimic her slow, determined movements, moving his hands up her thighs with unhurried pleasure. Perhaps he would rather take her against the wall again, were it up to him, but it feels a lazy morning, and he is willing to let her take her time. But as his desire mounts, it becomes harder to focus on exploring her with quite the patience she is exploring him, and he grasps her about the waist with a growl.

“Ah ah, _vhenan'ara,_ good things come to those who wait.” She closes her hands around his wrists with a smile, and he releases her.

He is glad of it, for she rises from his hips to kneel between his legs, and lowers her mouth down onto his length.

He can't stop the moan that escapes from his lips, and he feels as well as hears her answering hum of amusement.

“Maker's breath, that's good,” he says. “Don't stop.”

But she does, a few seconds later. “I'll stop when I please,” she says, giving him a cheeky grin, and crawls over him to crouch, almost teasing, before she lowers herself onto his cock.

And _Maker, fuck,_ it looks _so good_ to see her riding him, her lip caught between her teeth, her small breasts bouncing. He reaches up to cup his hands around them, her nipples hard against his palms, and then slowly caressing down her body until he can thumb the little nub above her sex.

He finds his climax a moment before she does, his hand tightening on her thigh, and she clenches around him with a gasp.

As his pleasure fades, all he wants to do is hold her, and she obliges, slipping from him to curl up by his side, hand on his chest. He turns onto his side to pull her closer, and hears her sharp intake of breath as she curls her arm around his shoulder.

“ _Sylaise_ , did I do this to you?” She runs her fingers along one of the scratches she had given him the night before. “I'm so sorry...”

He kisses the apology from her lips. “No, don't be sorry,” he says, kissing her again. “They're well worth it. And if they scar, they shall always remind me of you. Besides, it's not like I never give you any war wounds. How many times have you hidden a bite mark or bruise behind a scarf?”

She blushes. “I have to admit, I rather like them,” she says. “ _Marked_ by a human. It's... _provocative_.”

He chuckles, and makes to kiss her again, but a sound gives him pause. He glances over his shoulder to where their clothes and weapons are piled, judging the distance. Too far... he thanks his stars he has a mage in his arms.

But then Sera steps out from the bushes, and gives them a grin. “I found them!” she yells over her shoulder. “They were having sex!”

“Oh, sweet Maker,” he mumbles, scrambling for his clothes.

“You were right,” Sera says as he dresses, facing the wall. “He _is_ hairy.”

“I told you.”

Blackwall pulls on his trousers and grabs his vest, turning as he pulls it over his head. He finds Sera looking at him with an air of appraisal.

“I still don't get what you see in him. I mean,” she wrinkles her nose, “I _get_ it, I mean, he has a big dong. But so what? Now _you_ ,” she turns to give the Inquisitor, still sitting naked on the floor, a look of appreciation. “I definitely get what he sees in _you._ ”

Blackwall doesn't know how he is meant to respond to this _at all_ , beyond dying of embarrassment, which is a distinct possibility. The Inquisitor saves him, rising with a laugh to retrieve her clothes.

“I'm sorry Sera,” she says, “but I'm spoken for.”

 

 


	42. Clan Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition receives some bad news.

When they get back to Skyhold, Josephine is waiting, papers in her hands and her forehead creased with concern. The Inquisitor goes to her at once, and it is not until late in the evening that Blackwall begins to wonder what she's doing.   
  
He enters the Great Hall, with the intention of climbing the stairs to her tower, but Varric calls him over, indicating a chair by the fire.  
  
“You should know what you're going up there to find,” he says, his face drawn.  
  
Blackwall tenses. “What? Why? What's happened?”  
  
The dwarf rakes a hand through his hair. “Josephine got a letter. From Keeper Whatsername. Most of the Clan Lavellan is dead. Probably the Keeper too, by now.”  
  
The information settles on his heart like a tombstone.   
  
“Oh... Maker...”  
  
“Yeah. Some plague that doesn't effect elves hit the town, and they blamed them. Slaughtered the Alienage, then attacked the Dalish. So I... I don't know. She hasn't come down since. Josephine sent up some food but... Look, you'd be the best one to talk to her. I'm just not sure she wants to talk.”  
  
“Is there... is there anything we can do? The Inquisition, I mean...”  
  
“Nightingale's checking things, but...” Varric shrugs. “It doesn't look like there's anything left for us to do.”  
  
Blackwall stops in with Josephine before climbing the Inquisitor's tower. He finds the diplomat by her fireplace, staring into the flames.  
  
He coughs, and she turns with a start. Her eyes are red-rimmed.   
  
“Oh! Warden. My apologies, I didn't hear you come in.”  
  
He lets his eyes wander over the paintings on the wall. “I, ah... Varric told me what you showed the Inquisitor. I wanted to know if there was anything else you could tell me, before I go up and see her.”  
  
Josephine looks distraught. “I'm not sure she's up to seeing anyone,” she says, “even you – if you'll pardon my saying so. But you should go up, just to let her know.... let her know we're all thinking of her, and that we wish we could have done more. I have a copy of the letter, if you'd like to read it...”  
  
He does. The message does not provoke hope. It's not even properly signed. He hands the paper back wordlessly.   
  
“Leliana has sent birds to her agents in the area. She has them searching for survivors. If anyone lives, we'll have them brought to Skyhold.”  
  
“Good. That's... good.”  
  
Josephine shrugs. “I don't know if it's that, but it's all we have at the moment.”  
  
The climb to her tower seems longer than usual. When he reaches her door, he knocks, but hears nothing within. Hesitantly, he pushes the door open.  
  
“Are you there, love?” he calls up the stairs as he climbs them. “I heard...”  
  
He can't see her. She's not in her bed, as he had expected. Nor is she on her balconies. The meal Josephine had send up is untouched on her desk. For a moment, he panics, leaning over the edges of the balconies to make sure she hasn't thrown herself off. Thankfully there is no sign of a broken body on the rocks below. Finally he pushes open the door to her closet, and climbs the ladder.  
  
He finds her at the far end of her mezzanine, huddled under a blanket. He crouches in front of her, and lifts the blanket from her face.  
  
She tries to hide from him, pushing his hand away and covering her face, but he catches her wrists and leans down to get a look at her.  
  
She looks terrible. Her face is red and puffy from prolonged crying, her hair tangled and damp from tears.  
  
“Don't look at me,” she whispers. “Leave me alone. I should be dead, like them.”  
  
Blackwall sits down, his back against the wall, and pulls the unresisting woman into his lap. The blanket he wraps around the both of them, pulling it up to hide her head, and waits until she has settled against him.   
  
“There now,” he says. “That's better.”  
  
She shakes her head. “Please, go. I just.... I don't want to be around people. I want to be alone.”  
  
But he wraps his arm tighter about her and pulls her closer. “No. Not when you have those balconies out there. If you threw yourself off I wouldn't know what to do with myself.”  
  
She is silent, for a moment.   
  
“I wouldn't do that,” she says at last. “The Inquisition needs me.”  
  
“I need you too.”  
  
She lifts her head, finally, and grazes her lips against his throat. “I know,” she says. “I just...”  
  
And she's sobbing again, her breath coming in great gasps, her body shaking, and he squeezes her in a way he hopes is some small comfort to her.   
  
“Let it out, love,” he says. “Cry all you need to. I'm here.”  
  
“They're all gone,” she says between sobs. “My mother, my father, my sister, her children. They're gone. And I'm. All alone.”  
  
“You're not alone, love.” He rests his forehead against her head. “You have me. You have the Inquisition. Varric, Bull, Cullen, Josephine. All of us. We're all here. You never have to be alone if you don't want to be.”  
  
At last her sobs ease, and he holds her until she drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to register a COMPLAINT, it being that YOUR WHOLE FAMILY DIES and NO ONE REACTS TO IT AT ALL
> 
> THE FUCK IS THAT.


	43. Mourning

He wakes in the dead of night, his back complaining at the position in which he has slept. He tries to stretch a little without waking the Inquisitor, but as soon as he moves he sees her head rise from his shoulder.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Go back to sleep, my lady,” he says, stilling. “It's nothing. I didn't mean to wake you.”  
  
But she's already blinking the sleep from her eyes.  
  
“Did something happen? Am I needed somewhere?” She yawns, and rubs her cheeks, and pulls herself to her feet. “ _Andruil_ , I'm hungry.”  
  
“Josephine had some food sent up, hours ago,” Blackwall says, letting go of the idea of seeing her back off to sleep. The ship has sailed on that one. “You should eat – ”  
  
He can see the exact moment when the evening comes rushing back to her. Her face contorts with grief, and she pulls her blanket over her head like a heavy cowl.   
  
He rises to wrap his arms around her shoulders, and she leans into him. This time she is stiff; sobs aren't shaking her lithe frame. He doesn't know whether he should be thankful for that or not. She keeps far too much to herself. He worries that this, like everything else, will get pushed down and hidden, because they don't have time for grief, don't have time for mourning.   
  
At length she straightens, and he lets her go.   
  
“I should eat,” she says, pushing her blanket back away from her face. “You, you should – ”  
  
“I'm not leaving you, love,” he says, shaking his head.   
  
Her face contorts again, and she nods. “Get into bed,” she says, indicating the fur-lined nest below them. “You can warm it up for me.”  
  
He follows her down the ladder, waiting to make sure she really does eat before he peels off his clothes and slips between the cool sheets. His intention is to stay up for her, to keep watch while she sleeps, but the next thing he knows he is waking as she slips into bed beside him.  
  
“I didn't mean to sleep,” he mumbles, reaching for her.  
  
“Hush.” She winds her arms around his neck, cradling his head against her shoulder. “I sat up for a while, reading. I couldn't face sleeping again. I needed some time.”  
  
Her skin is cool, perfectly cool and smooth and soft, and he tangles his legs in hers as he falls back to sleep.


	44. Sea-Gazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Qunari have offered an alliance.

The Inquisitor seems to recover quickly from her loss. Blackwall is sure that she hasn't – that she could never recover from a blow like that so quickly – but she keeps her grief private. The Inquisition continues on as if nothing has happened.   
  
If she still mourns, it is not something she shares with him.   
  
It bothers him that she won’t talk to him, and he wishes it didn't. He knows that life in a Dalish clan is not something he can really understand, and that the people she lost are those he had never met. He does not even know their names... and that bothers him, too. She doesn't speak of them to him, not as people. Just as nameless figures in some snippet of her past. Once, when we were hunting or Once, the Keeper told me. No names. No lives.  
  
He can't ask her about them now, not when they're dead and the grief is so fresh. And he'd feel a hypocrite, when there's nothing he will tell her of his own past.   
  
But he worries. One night he tracks her down, sitting with a book behind her desk, to ask if she's all right. She brushes his concerns aside.   
  
“I need to keep busy,” she says. “I need to focus on what's important.”  
  
“What's important? My lady – ”  
  
“They're dead, Blackwall. I can't save them now. I have to think about the ones I can.”   
  
So she keeps busy. The Iron Bull has had word from his Qunari masters that they might want to throw in their lot with the Inquisition, if she will meet with them. She will.  
  
The Storm Coast. It seems they're always coming back here.  
  
Blackwall looks out to sea, the rolling waves hissing, thoughts full of the past. Cassandra lingers by his side, her own arms crossed; perhaps her own thoughts as far away.  
  
He overhears the elf, Gat, talking to the Inquisitor about how he came to work with the Ben-Hassrath. About the anger in his own past.  
  
“It took me a long time to get past justice, to purpose. Some days are still difficult.”  
  
Justice. Purpose. Blackwall wonders idly if his life may have taken a different path if it had been a Qunari he had met in that pub instead of a Grey Warden.  
  
No. The Qun is, as far as he can gather, a little too all-encompassing for him. Besides, he'd asked Bull once what role he'd have under the Qun, and the man's reply had included something about “manual labour” that had put him in a sour mood.   
  
Beside him, Cassandra shifts, and shoots him a glance. “So, how did you join the Wardens?”  
  
He minds her questions less than Varric's, and he doesn't really have to lie, not about the “how”. But he's not in the mood to discuss it – not here, of all places.  
  
“It's the usual story.”  
  
The Seeker makes a noise in her throat, a little knowing laugh.   
  
“There is no such thing as a usual story.”  
  
“Isn't there? A tavern, a chance meeting, a Senior Warden who saw worth in a worthless man? I'm not alone.”  
  
Cassandra turns to him, her sharp eyes narrowed.  
  
“There is more to this,” she says, not unkindly. “You just don't want to tell it.”  
  
“No,” he replies. “You don't want to hear it.”  
  
There's movement in the camp; the Inquisitor and Bull head up the slope, the Chargers down the other side of the clearing. Blackwall and Cassandra lock eyes for a moment, weighing the silent question of who's to join the party.   
  
“You go,” Blackwall says. She gives him a nod, and checks her sword as she follows the Inquisitor.   
  
Blackwall listens to them move away as he looks back out to sea. The faint sound of Cassandra's respectful complaints and the Inquisitor's reply that “the quickest route between two points is a straight line!” makes him chuckle despite himself. The quickest route! It never is, with her. The time spent clambering up this or over that could be more than made up by following the path, but she can never be reasoned with.   
  
The sound of a cork snaps him from his sea-gazing reverie, and he looks around to see Varric waving a small bottle of something in his direction. His expression drops, and the dwarf starts to laugh.  
  
“Don't worry, Hero, no questions today. Come have a drink with me. We may soon have some well-armed new allies; that's something to celebrate, right?”  
  
“I'm not so sure,” he says, taking a seat on the rock beside him and the whiskey from his hand. “Qunari are strange. The Iron Bull's all right, but I don't trust the rest of them.”  
  
“Nor do I, but we have a shared enemy, and that's good enough to start with.”  
  
They sit in silence a while, passing the bottle back and forth. Blackwall is brooding, and aware that Varric has noticed this and is making up his own little fictions about why that might be.   
  
“Out with it, dwarf,” he says at last. “Ask your damned questions.”  
  
“No questions!” Varric says, holding up his hands in defense. “I was just... _observing_ that this place has an effect on you. Can't be the rain – the Fallow Mire was worse. Not that you were in a good mood there...”  
  
“Can anyone be in a good mood in the Fallow Mire?” Blackwall chuckles. Then he sighs. “I lost a friend here, on the Storm Coast. I think of him when we're here. I couldn't save him... I regret that.”  
  
Varric, to his credit, does not say “I told you so”. He merely nods, and drinks more whiskey, and hands the bottle back.   
  
Blackwall reflects the man has plenty of his own he has failed to save. The Tale of the Champion... His brother, no less, and Hawke's sister. The mess that the rogue mage's actions brought about. Corypheus himself. Varric has his own regrets. The thought steals over him that perhaps better than anyone in the Inquisition, Varric would be the one to understand him. It's a bitter thought; he'll never know.  
  
An almighty bang has them on their feet, reaching for their weapons. On the water below, the Qunari ship is aflame, in pieces – there are Venatori on the beach below.   
  
“Oh, bloody hell.”  
  
It's only a moment before the Inquisitor reappears, her party at her back, her pretty face darkened by a frown.   
  
“Fall back,” she says. The elf Gat gives her a sour look, which she returns. “There will be no bargain today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The banter between Blackwall and Cassandra is from in-game, one of those exchanges I just had to include as it's so revealing. I also really like the camaraderie these two share, before she finds out he's a dirty dirty liar :D She takes it hard and she takes it personally, and I like that. It's important that he has to win back trust from some people.
> 
> So, things are coming up on the attack on Adamant. There are a few chapters of happy domestic whatever before then, so enjoy them while they last.


	45. Elvish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Squishy chapter full of LOVE and other gross junk don't read this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon: after the Inquisitor's whole family gets massacred she goes and gets drunk with Dalish from the Chargers and they talk about their clans and cry
> 
> Also this chapter exists for you to reread when, in several chapters' time, everything goes to shit. You can look back and think "man, remember when everything wasn't terrible? Remember when they just sat together and exchanged gross gooey sentiments of love? REMEMBER?" 
> 
> This chapter sickens me
> 
> I dedicate it to anyone who has never bothered to google any of the elvish phrases. Maker bless you.

Blackwall is glad that the Chargers survived the Venatori on the Storm Coast, and his reasons aren't entirely selfless.   
  
He tracks down the Dalish girl. They just call her “Dalish”, which seems a bit odd to him, but the Iron Bull's team are a strange lot. She tries – not very hard – to pretend that she isn't a mage. There doesn't seem to be much reason to at this point, but they carry on the charade. It must be some sort of game for them.  
  
Dalish is quiet and suspicious, but when he gives her the piece of paper on which he's written the Elvish words he wants the meanings for, she laughs and gives him a fond look.  
  
“These are endearments,” she says, tapping the piece of paper. “You've spelt them wrong, but I think that's what you mean.”  
  
“Could you translate them for me” he asks her, brows knitting. “I'd like to know what they say.”  
  
Her smile widens. “All right, Grey Warden. Buy me a drink, and I will.”  
  
He does. When he returns with the mugs, she takes a swig, then nods and taps the paper again.  
  
“This first one. _Emma lath_. That means 'my love'. _Ma vhenan_ is 'my heart'. And this other one, _vhenan'ara_ , that means 'heart's desire'.” She takes another mouthful of grog and looks from him back to the paper. “This woman loves you.”  
  
“Is there...” He stops, and clears his throat, and takes a drink from his own mug before he speaks again. “Is there anything I should call her? In return?”  
  
“You tell me what you want to know how to say,” she says, “and I will help you.”  
  
He has to think about this for a while; any phrase he would  _really_ like to use is not something he feels comfortable discussing with Dalish. The phrase “most fervent craving of my loins”, for example. He can’t say _that_ , true though it may be. He’s sure it would sound better in Elvish, but he’d never work up the courage to ask. Just  _thinking_ that one makes him feel like Varric is reading his mind, and the dwarf isn't even in the room.

He picks something that is inherently true, and that he can say without blushing like a fool. When he has explained the sort of thing he means, she writes it down for him.  
  
“ _Ma nehn_.” She passes the paper across the table. “That, I think, is what you would like to say, yes?”  
  
“I think I owe you another drink, Dalish,” he says, retrieving his piece of paper. “I'll even add a third one onto that if you keep this to yourself.”  
  
She laughs, and shakes her head. “Do not worry, Warden. I have no wish to embarrass you or our Inquisitor. She and I have more in common than you might think, but our lives took us very different ways.” She taps her fingers against her mug, a small, thoughtful smile on her face. “I like her. She reminds me of things I had to leave behind. If you would thank me for this thing I've done, then mention me to her. If we could have a drink sometime and talk of our clans, of what we both have lost… I would like that.”  
  
“I'm sure she would like that too, Dalish,” he says, getting to his feet. “I'll let her know.”  
  
When she comes to him that evening in the barn, and they sit before his small fire, he tries it out, and sees her eyes widen.   
  
“Where did you learn that?” she teases him, pressing a kiss to his throat. “You’ve been studying!”  
  
He chuckles. “I asked the Dalish girl from the Chargers. She told me the meanings of all those terms you use. _Emma lath_ , and all that.”  
  
“You didn’t know what they meant?” She smirks at him. “You could have asked me.”  
  
“I could have,” he says. “I didn’t like to. I felt a bit of a fool, not knowing. And I left it a bit long, didn’t I? ‘Oh by the way, my lady, what do those things mean you’ve been calling me all these months?’”  
  
“I hope you didn’t think they were insults!” She laughs to herself, and stares up at the dark roof, high above. The stars are only just visible, here and there, through the broken slats. “ _Ma nehn_ ,” she murmurs. “That is very sweet, Blackwall.”  
  
“Well, you are.” He rests his cheek against her hair, and follows her gaze. “My joy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So terrible was that original phrase that Varric read his mind from all the way over in the Great Hall and he can't stop laughing. 
> 
> (I just like the idea of Blackwall committing these terms to memory and surreptitiously trying to work out what they mean. He will never use the phrase again, haha.)


	46. Valeska's Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploring a Warden outpost.

It's too bloody cold. Too cold to travel too far without a fire. Every Red Templar camp they come across, the Inquisitor sends up a magic flare and they wait, breath steaming, warming their hands over a flame she has conjured until the Inquisition troops appear and make camp.   
  
His breath clouds in the air as they trudge through the snow. Dorian, the overdressed fop, looks absolutely miserable, which warms his cockles a little, at least.   
  
They haven't travelled far from their camp above the valley when they find a corpse in the snow. A Grey Warden.   
  
The Inquisitor bends to pick something up from beside the body. She dusts some snowflakes from its surface before turning and handing it to him. A joining chalice.  
  
He'd never held one of his own, of course. He's aware of its sacred nature, aware that some had probably died when they held it to their lips. He examines the carvings in the silver, reverent and silent.  
  
“Do you think he was here with the Red Templars?”  
  
Blackwall is startled from his reverie by a question so counter to his thoughts. _Like a bucket of ice water,_ he thinks, chiding himself for it. The Wardens are involved in Corypheus's plans. He shouldn't keep pretending otherwise.  
  
“I don't know, my lady,” he says carefully, rubbing chalice with his thumb. “I shouldn't think so. Why would he bring a joining chalice? What reason would they have for finding new Wardens with the Red Templars?” He shakes his head. “No. Perhaps he was like me, looking for new recruits by himself. Only this time they found him before you did.”  
  
“Well, I'm sorry for it,” she says, glancing down at the chalice in his hands.   
  
He's not so sure. He's sorry the man is dead, of course he is, but he isn't entirely happy with the idea of there being “another” Warden in the Inquisitor's inner circle. He shakes his head at himself as he realises it isn't because he'd be found out, but from fear of being replaced in her affections.  
  
 _Where did that come from, old man?_ he wonders to himself. _Her feelings aren't so fickle._   
  
Varric, searching the dead man's pockets, lets out a whistle.  
  
“ _Valeska's Watch_ ,” he says, passing up a key to the Inquisitor.   
  
The key is shaped a little like a griffon, and with a start Blackwall recognises the name.   
  
“A Warden outpost! There should be a cave...”   
  
Sure enough, just under a snow-laden outcrop of rock, a long cave ending in a tall set of doors. It's unsettlingly quiet. He's read enough about this place now to know there should be Wardens stationed here, Calling or no Calling.  
  
“This is wrong,” he says. “Inquisitor, we need to scout this place. There's an entry here to the Deep Roads, one significant enough that there have always been Wardens standing guard. There may be darkspawn.”  
  
“We're here for Inquisition business, not Warden business,” Dorian tells him, his arms crossed against the cold. The weather has made him snappy, but Blackwall is not feeling generous, and scowls at the mage.  
  
“Wardens man this entrance because darkspawn have broken through in the past and are like to do so again. Now they're gone – to Adamant, or killed by the Templars. Do you want darkspawn at our backs when we're hunting Samson?”  
  
Dorian scowls back, and looks away.  
  
“He's right, Dorian. We should get this seen to.”  
  
“Very well,” he snaps, “but let's do it _quickly_. It's cold.”  
  
“I won't bring you along with us, next time,” the Inquisitor laughs at him as she leads them through the door. “You can stay at camp and warm your toes by the fire.”  
  
Dorian is about to make some sort of sour reply, when a roar interrupts him. A Hurlock alpha has spotted them, and darkspawn are pouring out of the shadows like the vermin they are.   
  
The alphas are tough bastards, and there are more of them here than Blackwall would like. Each wave of the buggers falls, only to be replaced by another. They beat them back slowly, until the first cavernous hall has been cleared, and they can pause for breath.  
  
“I _hate_ darkspawn,” Varric grumbles. “Let’s find where they’re coming from quickly and get out of here.”  
  
“A friend of yours died, didn’t she?” Blackwall asks him. “Poisoned by darkspawn blood. Hawke’s sister.”  
  
“Bethany.” Blackwall sees the man’s face contort as he looks away. “I don’t want to talk about it. Poor kid.”  
  
There are plenty of Warden goodies here, and he wishes they could spend longer sifting through them. Records, weapons, not to mention all the bloody ritewine. He makes a note to stop on the way back through and take a few bottles. Might cheer Varric up.  
  
The second cavern seems to serve as a barrier between the Warden outpost and the Deep Roads. It’s unworked, great stalagmites stabbing up from the rock. From across the chasm, darkspawn hiss, then disappear into its depths, only to scramble up the side.   
  
Fierce buggers. Two Hurlock alphas burst through the line of their minions, and for a moment all is movement, block and slash, cut and ram. When the last Hurlock falls, standing knee-deep in darkspawn corpses, Blackwall shifts his shield arm and winces.  
  
“I think my shield’s seen its last battle,” he says, hefting it to examine its surface. “Shame. It was a good one.”  
  
“No matter,” the Inquisitor says. “We’ll get you a new one. There will be plenty in the Wardens’ stocks to tide you over until we get back to Skyhold. Now stay here, all of you. I’m going to close off the opening to the Deep Roads.”  
  
She has to make herself a little bridge before she can get across to close the opening, rocks hovering in the air as if they were nothing. It’s a strange thing, magic. Blackwall has seen her knock a half-dozen men to the ground at once with that invisible force. Powerful. Dangerous.   
  
He’d been opposed to her choice of Rift Magic as a speciality, to begin with. It unnerved him, especially given how scattered her teacher seemed. Couldn’t even remember her own bloody name. He had changed his mind somewhat the first time the Inquisitor had summoned a fist of stone and sent a charging Templar guard sprawling a hundred feet off. It had been… satisfying.  
  
As the last rock settles over the opening, he wonders idly if she could lift _him_ in the air with such ease. _Exciting_ , really. In a way.   
  
“You’re staring, Hero,” Varric mumbles to him, and grins.  
  
“Am I?” He turns back to watch her, lithe and graceful, hop her way back across her floating rocks. “Can you blame me?”  
  
“Stop oogling the Inquisitor, you great unwashed gorilla, and help me with this shield I’ve found you.”   
  
He turns to see Dorian bent over something by the far wall. With his own magic, the man raises up a few small rocks, and pulls something from a pile of ancient darkspawn corpses.   
  
Dorian attempts to hold the thing with just a thumb and forefinger. He makes a face. “Eurgh. That blood looks like it’s been there for _centuries_.”  
  
Blackwall takes the shield from him and examines it, turning it over and over in his hands. “It’s a good piece,” he says, surprised. “Very good, to have survived for so long.”  
  
“Hey, give it here.” Varric tilts the shield down and examines the image on its surface. “I knew that image looked familiar.” He taps the edge, and gives Blackwall a smirk. “I’ve seen pictures of it. There are people in Orzammar who would pay a _fortune_ to get their hands on this. What you have there, Warden, is the shield of Egon Wintersbreath.”  
  
“And who’s he, when he’s at home?”  
  
“He was a Paragon. One of the greatest. He led the dwarfs against the First Blight, then joined the Wardens when Orzammar sealed itself off from everyone else.”  
  
“The _First_ Blight?” Blackwall stares at the thing. “Bloody hell, it’s old. Here, you have it,” he says, and shoves it towards Varric, who all but stumbles as he backs away.  
  
“Hey, who do you think you’re talking to? I have Bianca! You’re the one who needs a shield.”  
  
“But he was a Paragon. You’re a dwarf. You don't want to return it to your people?”  
  
Varric gives him a sour look. "What, and let them hang it up on the wall and shut it away? The Paragon left Orzammar so he could use that thing against darkspawn. It'd be wrong to send it back down there, and anyway those windbags don't deserve it." He shakes his head. "You’re the Grey Warden, Hero. _You_ take it.”  
  
“Well, _someone_ take it,” the Inquisitor says from the doorway, rolling her eyes. “We’re done here. Let’s get back to a nice fire.”  
  
They bar the door, though if the darkspawn make it back through the tunnels, it won’t stand against them long.   
  
“I’m not sure about that shield,” the Inquisitor says to him as they trudge back to camp.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“It’s yellow. It clashes with your armour.”  
  
He laughs. “Well, I’ll just have to keep it covered in the blood of your enemies, my lady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include in here somewhere a bit of that banter between Varric and Blackwall, where Blackwall says he knew a dwarf once who brewed his own beer, and Varric replies he knew a Grey Warden once who blew up a Chantry. But there didn't really seem to be a place for it.
> 
> It was a bit unfair of me to give Varric all this knowledge about Paragons he probably wouldn't have had. Maybe when he was tiny, his brother showed him a picture book full of lost Paragon artefacts and said "one day, we'll go down into the deep roads and find them all! A real treasure hunt!" and they grinned at each other and ran around the house playing pretend adventurers.


	47. "Warm by the Fire"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pillow talk

  
In their tent that night, she turns to face him on the bedroll, her face lost in shadow.  
  
“Why don’t you like Dorian?” she asks him.  
  
He’s taken aback by the question, and snorts.  
  
“You’re too lenient with that Tevinter fop. _He_ doesn’t like _me_ either; have you asked him why?”  
  
But she’s shaking her head, making a little _tut-tutting_ noise with her tongue. “You’re unfair to him,” she says. “He _does_ like you. He just likes to tease - it’s his sense of humour, that’s all.”  
  
“He thinks too much of himself.”  
  
Blackwall can just make out the frown on her face.  
  
“He doesn’t,” she says. “But I won’t argue with you.”  
  
“He thinks very little of _me_ , that’s for certain. He treats me like something he found on the bottom of his shoe.”  
  
She’s started grinning now - he can see the flash of her teeth in the dim light from their lantern.  
  
“He thinks you’re oh-so-good, like Sera does. It annoys him. He’s sure there’s something you’re hiding, because no one can be that good. You must be corrupt somewhere. He won’t ask, because that would be _impolite_ , and anyway that would spoil the fun.”  
  
Blackwall lets her giggle at that. Things he may or may not be hiding are subjects he always takes pains to avoid, so he chooses the other option she has left open to him.  
  
“And you don’t think I’m oh-so-good?”  
  
“I do not,” she says, “and I shall tell you why. Three reasons.” She pulls herself up to sit cross-legged on her bedroll, and counts them out on her fingers. “One, you were a soldier, and soldiers are never oh-so-good. You see too much in war for that. Soldiers swear and curse and fight dirty, because war is horrific and you have to stay alive.” She quirks a brow at him, and he nods. “Two, you are a Grey Warden, and all Grey Wardens have a past they are trying to forget. And three, a man who is oh-so-good wouldn’t fuck like you do.”  
  
She grins at him, and he tackles her onto the bedroll.  
  
“And how is that?” he growls, his eyes glinting.  
  
“Like a starving man,” she says, and kisses him. “A man who knows how quick all can be lost. How the tide of battle can change. A man who intends to get all he can of love and heat to keep him warm on cold dark nights. Like a soldier. Like a Warden.”  
  
Realisation stirs in him, unwelcome, as she presses her lips to his throat.  
  
“Cold and dark… like the Deep Roads?” When she makes no reply he kisses her, fiercely, roughly, her breath hot in his lungs. “I told you,” he says, pulling back only as much as he must, and pressing his forehead against hers. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
“One day,” she says, “when Corypheus is gone, you’ll hear the Calling truly.”  
  
“I’ll stay,” he says, fervent, impassioned, kissing her again to make her believe it. And he means it, deeply, though he’ll never hear the Calling - knows he’d never leave her if they dragged him off in chains.  
  
But when they pause for breath she combs her fingers through his beard, and in the lantern light her eyes are sad.  
  
“No,” she says. “You won’t. You’re a Warden. You know your duty. And… and they say death from the Blight is no pleasant death. If you don’t go to the Deep Roads…” She lifts her chin to press a kiss on his brow. “If you want it to be me… I’ll do it. But I warn you now, Blackwall: I might cry.”  
  
Maker’s breath. She’s a good woman. Better than he deserves. He slides his fingers through her hair, studying her tattooed face in the meagre light. This time her kisses are slow and measured, cool like snowmelt.  
  
“Anyway,” she says, “Dorian doesn’t dislike you. He just doesn’t know you like I do.”  
  
Blackwall snorts, but the humour is creeping back into her eyes, so he rolls to one side and pulls her flush against him.  
  
“How do you know he doesn’t dislike me? Did he tell you as much?”  
  
For a second or two she is silent, idle fingers creeping up to toy with his chest hair.  
  
“He stopped me once, in the library, to… _congratulate_ me. On our relationship.” Blackwall’s expression must be incredulous, for she raises her chin, defiantly. “He and I _are_ friends, you know. He was glad to see me happy.”  
  
“You sure he doesn’t want you for himself?”  
  
The Inquisitor lets out a cackle so sudden that it gives him a fright. She sees it, too, and laughs all the harder, pulling herself up onto her knees so she can get a better look at his dumbfounded expression.  
  
“Here, now… What did I say?”  
  
He laughter subsides to giggles. “Blackwall, _ma vhenan_ , between the two of us, I rather think he’s more interested in _you_.”  
  
Understanding dawns, rather too late.  
  
“Actually,” she continues, “I think you’re his type!”  
  
“I’m not! He called me a lummox.”  
  
“He thinks you’re _masculine_.” She puts extra emphasis into the word, her eyes sparkling. “He called you _burly_. And he said it as if it gave him _ideas_.”  
  
Blackwall can’t summon a coherent sentence, especially in the face of her breathless giggles. At last he declares that if she’s going to make fun of him, she can go back to her own tent.  
  
“He said - ” a pause as she collapses into giggles again and tries to regain her breath, “ - he said you must be warm by the fire!”  
  
Blackwall grabs her, tickling between her ribs in a spot that has her shrieking.  
  
“All right, all right, I’ll stop!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Blackwall really can't stand each other for a long time, so when Dorian started with his congratulations I was a bit sceptical. And then he starts sounding far too contemplative about the whole idea, as if he'd maybe had some THOUGHTS, and I thought, ooooo, do you have a TYPE, Dorian? Like 'em muscle-bound, do you? A bit of rough for the scion of house Pavus? 
> 
> Fucking cracked me up. And then I wondered how much attention Blackwall pays to other people's particular proclivities and whether or not he'd have noticed. I know Varric knows, because he says something like "we have something in common" to Dorian at one point, and he replies "Oh yeeerrs? I had no idea!" and Varric's like "HA, not THAT much in common". But Blackwall is pretty private about his own sexual and relationship stuff so he probably doesn't consider that of others all that much.
> 
> The Calling isn't on Blackwall's radar, because it's not something that's actually in his future (as far as he knows at this point). THAT's not the thing he broods over. But it's something that preys on the Inquisitor's mind. The Calling and the whole tradition around it is pretty fucked up, when you really look at it. In the Fade, you find a list of a child's fears, about the blight and his warden father trying to hide that he hears his calling from his family. And there's a warden who is sitting down in the deep roads, all alone, by a campfire, knowing he's going to die very, very soon, and all he wants is the feeling that he's not just mindlessly walking into the abyss. That there's some semblance of honour and real sacrifice. When in reality, he won't make a dent in their numbers. 
> 
> Blackwall talks a lot of crap about how all wardens are is a promise to protect people. How they're honour personified and all that shit. He must know on some level that they're mostly people who had no other option, because the risk of death just joining is so high. They're the Thedas equivalent of the Night's Watch; they LOOK good on the outside, until you get to know them. They're bloody-minded and desperate and afraid. Well, most of 'em... I'd LOVE for Blackwall to meet Oghren. And Oghren isn't even a criminal! He's just some drunk wanker. I love that shithead so much. He's just such a remarkably terrible person that I can't help it. "Hey, Blackwall! Here is a GENUINE WARDEN. Are you sure they're all better people than you are?" 
> 
> Also it makes me laugh comparing the concept "fucking like a warden" to Alistair, who would laugh awkwardly and turn bright pink.


	48. "War is Cruel"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall finds a letter. (A letter he would have found earlier in the fic if I had stumbled upon it before but OH WELL)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus begins the run-up to Adamant. I have about 20k written up and sitting waiting for you, although a bulk of that is the Fade. I'm trying to trim the Fade down. I don't want it to be dull... I'm stuck between "oh but LOOK how INTERESTING all the fears about the Blight and the Calling and so on" and feeling like all I'm doing is repeating game dialogue without enough extra emotion and reaction which is what this fic is *all about*.
> 
> Anyway, as you know... After that begins what I have personally been thinking of as "Act Three: Thom Rainier". You don't know how I've been SUFFERING this last couple of weeks. I have been posting more often just because I can't wait for you to join me in this HELL.

He rises early one morning from the Inquisitor’s bed. It’s clear, on mornings like this, why she loves her tower room: the air is beautifully crisp, and still, and silent.  
  
He stirs the fire back to life, and drifts over to her desk. It’s covered in papers, and he idly leafs through them. He recognises some of these; they had been found on the Exalted Plains: the last words of many a nameless soldier.  
  
Meaningless to the Inquisition, yet she had kept them. Of course she had. He smiles.  
  
One note has an addition scribbled in the corner: “What do you make of this?” along with Leliana’s dismissive reply: “Nothing important. An Orlesian criminal.”  
  
His eyes slide down the page, and his blood turns to ice.   
  
_“Did you hear? One of the recruits from Val Royeaux said they saw the “famous” Thom Rainier drinking at the Halberd, east of Val Royeaux. I thought you’d be interested, given your history. Although the lad’s probably only seem him in sketches. Somehow I doubt the old captain’s foolish enough to come within a hundred yards of the capital. I’ll let you decide whether you believe it…”_  
  
He drops into the Inquisitor’s chair, struggling for breath as his chest constricts. His vision begins to darken around the edges, and he lowers his head to his knees, mind screaming in panic.   
  
A thousand questions repeat themselves. Where did she find it? When? Who was the man to receive it - and was it ever sent? Did he get the letter? Is he out searching for him somewhere? He must know the man - Maker, who was he? And the Halberd - he’d been there, but - the letter must be more recent than that, it _must be_.   
  
“Blackwall, are you all right?”  
  
He jolts. The Inquisitor is moving towards him, curious, concerned.  
  
“I…” _Say something, say something!_ “I…”  
  
But she’s seen the look on his face, and runs to her washroom, returning with a cool compress. With slow and deliberate movements she comes to him, perching on the arm of the chair and murmuring to him in Elvish as she strokes damp locks away from his forehead. Her hands are cool, gentle, and she waits until his breathing has begun to even out before she speaks.  
  
“Battle trauma?” she asks him, and doesn’t press him when he doesn’t answer. “It must be hard for a soldier to read letters like that. From people who never made it back. I imagine you lost many of your own.”  
  
He swallows repeatedly, groping for words. “I… yes. It… it’s never easy… but we lose more here every day, I should — ”  
  
“No. War is cruel, even to the survivors. We all feel the echoes of trauma and loss.”  
  
Guilt sees fit to present him with the images of Callier and his murdered family. His stomach churns, and he pushes himself away from the chair.   
  
“I - I have to go.”  
  
“Blackwall — ”   
   
But he’s gone, slamming her door behind him, taking the tower stairs two at a time. He manages to make it to the barn before emptying his stomach.   
  
_It’s all right,_ he tells himself, as he eases down into a corner with a bucket and desperately tries to control his breathing. _Nightingale said it was nothing. She doesn't know. It’s all right._


	49. Restless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall has a chat with Varric as the attack on Adamant looms.

The Inquisitor asks a lot from her people, but it’s no less than she gives herself. Watching her prepare their forces for the attack on Adamant, it’s become clear how much she’s changed. How much of a leader she’s become. Inquisitor, for good and true.   
  
They’ve known it was coming. It was in the air before she’d even mentioned it. They’re all of them nervous, soldiers and mages and everyone else besides. Cassandra and Iron Bull are spending more time than is necessary checking and sharpening their weapons. It’s a sure sign, in a warrior. Waiting for battle.   
  
After the attempt to capture Samson, Blackwall has more respect for Commander Cullen than ever. Fighting beside the man was a privilege. He’d been driven in their search for the ex-Templar, yet he fought with measured skill. The Inquisitor’s reliance on him is well placed. Still, Blackwall doesn’t envy him his role as commander of their forces. He’d only ever led a small number of men, fewer than fifty, and that… well, that hadn’t exactly ended admirably.  
  
Maker, why’d he have to think of that now? Those men… Some had fled, but most…   
  
He needed a drink. How long before they left for Adamant? Time enough to get paralytic? Unlikely. And he couldn’t let the Inquisitor down.   
  
She and her advisers have been locked in the war room for days, but it won’t be long now. Hours, if that. Even the horses know it, stirring and restless in their stalls. There’s tension in the air.  
  
Time enough for _one_ drink, at least.  
  
He finds Varric in the Herald’s Rest, and makes his way over to his table. A game of Wicked Grace will get his mind off old failures, if not future ones.  
  
The atmosphere has got to Varric as well; with a half-empty bottle and a full tankard, he’s tending to his crossbow. Bianca. What sort of name was that for a crossbow?  
  
Varric’s sharp eyes spot him before he reaches the table, and he gives him a smirk.  
  
“Hey, Hero. Here for a drink? I’m buying.” He gestures to the bottle, then waves to a barmaid for another tankard.  
  
“Just the one? I could do with a bloody barrel.” Blackwall drops onto a chair with a sigh. “I wish we could bloody get on with it.”  
  
“They say waiting is the hardest part. I’m not sure why. Me, I say getting stabbed in the gut is the hardest part.” He sets his crossbow down on a seat next to him, and reaches for his drink. “This is going to be bloody, Hero. You sure you’re ready to kill your fellow Wardens?”  
  
The thought _had_ crossed his mind. _Fellow_ they might not truly be, but he still respects them, and it isn’t an easy thing. He swallows, his jaw tight. “If they’re making bargains with demons, if they’re working with Corypheus…” He shakes his head. “I pray they can still be reasoned with, but if not, I’ll do what needs to be done. I won't let the Inquisition down. You know that.” The barmaid brings the tankard, and he gives her a nod of thanks as he reaches for Varric’s bottle. “What about your friend Hawke? Have you heard from her?”  
  
“Oh, she’ll be there.”  
  
A mouthful of strong liquor warms is way down Blackwalls throat and he coughs in appreciation.   
  
“Good stuff.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know if it’s _good_ , but it’s strong.”  
  
“That’s what I meant.” He takes another mouthful, and sets his mug down as he eases back against his chair. “You must miss her. Hawke. You were all but inseparable for years.”  
  
Varric sighs, and passes a hand across his forehead. “Well, I only have myself to blame. First that damn red lyrium idol, then Bertrand, and then Corypheus… Blondie gets the blame for the whole mage rebellion, civil war malarkey, but the rest you can place at my door.” He raises his tankard in a mock salute.  
  
“Hmm. Maybe _I_ should be the one buying the drinks.”  
  
Varric laughs. “Oh, don’t mind me, Hero. Just warming over some regrets.”  
  
“ _Ha_. You want to talk regrets…” He shakes his head. “You’re not the only one who’s done things he shouldn’t. And you didn’t know what the outcome would be. You can’t blame yourself.”  
  
Varric shakes his head, and tips back his mug. “Still my fault, Hero. Still my fault.”  
  
They sit in silence, half-listening to the bard’s sad condemnation of Samson, _templar fame, raise your shield of shame._   
  
“Do you think she’s changed?” Blackwall asks when the song has finished.  
  
“Who, the bard?” Varric gives him a quizzical look, then takes his meaning. “Ah, the Inquisitor.”   
  
“Aye. I’ve noticed it recently. She’s become more…” He trails off, unable to put his finger on quite what has changed.   
  
“Yeah, I know what you mean. She’s definitely grown into her role.” Varric narrows his eyes at him. “That bother you?”  
  
“No! No, of course not. I’m rather proud of her.”  
  
“We don’t have to have a _talk_ , do we?”  
  
Blackwall looks at him in alarm. “About what?”  
  
“You, the Inquisitor…” Varric grins, and spreads his hands. “Hey, just making sure you’ve been treating her right. She’s not really the sort to complain if you weren’t.”  
  
“Of _course_ I am,” he replies, brows knotting together. “What do you take me for?”  
  
Varric shrugs. “Well, there’s so much you don’t tell us, Hero. Maybe you’ve got a wife somewhere you’ve never mentioned.”  
  
“I don't,” he growls, pulling his tankard closer. “ _Leave it be._ It’s none of your bloody business, anyway." He shoots a suspicious look across the table. "Did you do this to Fenris? Talk to him about Hawke, make sure he didn’t have a wife hiding somewhere?”  
  
Now it’s Varric’s turn to look alarmed. “Are you kidding?! I value my innards! No, I talked to Hawke. Made sure she knew what she was doing.” He shrugs. “You know. As a friend.”  
  
“But instead of talking to the Inquisitor to work out why she’s wasting her time with a battered old Warden, you talk to me.”  
  
“Hey, the Inquisitor is intimidating!”

Blackwall chuckles. “Intimidating? Like Fenris?”  
  
“Well, they’re both elves who glow.” Varric grins, then shakes his head. “No, she… look. You didn’t see her, back when this all started.” He leans back and kicks his feet up on the table, crossing one ankle over the other. “First, she survives an explosion that levels a mountaintop, falls out of the Fade in front of a bunch of angry soldiers, and passes out. Doesn’t come to for days, and as soon as she does, she’s dragged in front of an irate Cassandra — and let me tell you from personal experience, _that’s_ not a lot of fun. She’s accused of blowing up the Temple and murdering the Divine, not to mention the thousands that had gathered for the Conclave. Had no idea what was going on, mind you, and some weird mark on her hand that was _killing_ her. Next thing she’s being escorted up the mountain to try and close the Breach, knowing if she can’t it could mean her head, and that even trying might kill her. She tries anyway. It takes so much out of her she passes out again, and she wakes up to find everyone calling her the Herald of someone she doesn’t even believe in.” Varric drains the last of the liquor from his cup, and reaches for the bottle to pour himself another. “Since then she’s travelled through time, closed the Breach, confronted an ancient evil magister, had a mountain fall on her, almost died in the snow, led us across the mountains, stopped a political assassination and saved the Orlesian Empire. And after all of the shit she’s gone through, how does fate reward her? Her clan gets massacred.” Varric sighs, and rubs a hand across his face. “I told her, back when we first started this thing, that I’ve written enough tragedies to see where this is going. Heroes — pardon my saying so, Hero — are everywhere. But this shit is beyond heroes. She’s a damn miracle, and she asked me to be her friend. So forgive me for making sure she’s not going to get her heart broken on top of everything else.”  
  
Blackwall stares at him, then drops his eyes to his tankard.   
  
“Well,” he says, “that’s put _me_ in my place, then.”  
  
“Come on. That’s not what I meant, Hero.”  
  
Blackwall looks up, and Varric gives him a tired smile. He smiles back.  
  
“No, I know. And I’m glad someone’s looking out for her. I’ll make sure — ”  
  
A horn sounds, cutting him off, and they turn to peer through the tavern windows. Movement. The Inquisitor and her advisers, descending the steps from the Great Hall.  
  
“It’s time,” Blackwall says, his hand dropping to the pommel of his sword.   
  
“It’ll be a long ride to Adamant with so many soldiers. I wouldn’t get excited _quite_ yet.”  
  
“But it’s time. At least on the road we’ll be moving. _Doing_ something. I can’t stand this sitting around.”  
  
Varric raises his tankard. “I’ll drink to that.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write about everyone being on edge, the way you know you totally are when you finish up a bunch of side quests and know you're about to click on the swirly green quest marker. It ended up being more about how far they've all come. It's been a long-ass time since the Inquisitor first fell outta the Fade. 80 hours of game time! And we're nearly at chapter 50! Gawd almighty.
> 
> Spoilers: the Inquisitor totally does get her heart broken on top of everything else. Great job Varric.


	50. Breach the Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adamant, part 1

  
The trebuchets were a gift from some lady or other. A fine gift, indeed. They don’t quite bring the walls crumbling down, but they make a good attempt.  
  
The Inquisitor has separated her comrades-in-arms. The bulk are to stay back with Cullen, helping him where they’re needed. Dorian flits from trebuchet to trebuchet, putting some sort of magic on the rocks. Cassandra stands with Cullen, making Blackwall think back to Haven, and their last battle there.  
  
The three the Inquisitor has chosen to accompany her into the middle of the fortress are Bull, Varric, and Blackwall himself. It’s bothering him, the choice. Bull and Varric he understands, but… Is it because she thinks him a Warden? Does she want him to… No, it doesn’t matter. She trusts him, and his sword. Maybe she just wants him with her. Though he has to admit to himself he wouldn’t have minded fighting with their soldiers. He’s proud of them.  
  
Their forces, once they breach the walls, are to clear their way. The battle is as big as the one that had spelled the end of Haven. Bigger. And this time, _they_ are the attacking force. The Inquisition hasn’t faced its like before, but they’re ready. Every soldier knows what he’s fighting for.  
  
The great battering ram finally breaks down the gates of the fortress, and they’re through. The Inquisitor leaps over the fallen gates to face their demon foes at the head of her army. It’s a damn beautiful sight, and in this moment Blackwall’s thoughts of fighting alongside their soldiers fall away. _Here_ is where he’s meant to be. Fighting at her side. He can’t imagine being anywhere else.  
  
He’s had more than enough practice against demons. They are easily dispatched. But raising his sword against Wardens is tougher. He doesn’t hesitate - knows he can’t, not in battle - but he’s keenly aware that these were once good men and women. That they might have been again. It’s not right. He exchanges glances with Stroud as the first group falls, and knows that he is having trouble too.  
  
It’s not right, no, but war never is. The air is full of smoke and the screams of soldiers. The sounds of dying men.  
  
Blackwall seeks out the Inquisitor’s face, and finds it set and firm. She will not falter. It’s a relief, in a way; it renews his own strength and resolve. She will not falter, and neither will he.  
  
They find a group of Wardens fighting their own mages, unwilling to become sacrifices for demons. They strike at the mages first, and when they have fallen, the Inquisitor calls out to the other Wardens for their surrender.  
  
For a moment, Blackwall thinks they might be spared, until their leader raises his head and yells “Never! Wardens, attack!”  
  
When they are dead, Stroud sighs, and turns the head of one of the fallen to the sky with the toe of his boot.  
  
“What a waste.”  
  
Aye, a waste. A damn, blighted shame.  
  
Each time they bring down a band of Wardens or demons, they pause to take a breath and regroup. Blackwall is struck, each time, by Adamant’s beauty. Blackwall - the real Blackwall - had told him about Adamant. _Adamant is the Order_ , he’d said. A guardian on the edge of the abyss. The lone soul that stares into oblivion and doesn’t falter. He wonders what the man would have said, to see it in flames. A great fortress, standing against darkspawn since the Second Blight, only to be brought down by the Inquisition.  
  
What a waste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Chapter 50. A good number for a point where things start to change. 
> 
> I'm not very good at describing fight scenes or anything like that, and you can't get too introspective about shoving a sword into something. So I apologise if these chapters aren't really "up to snuff". Also parts of Adamant are quite fast-paced and I was having trouble taking notes.
> 
> Blackwall's thoughts about Adamant at the end are from an in-game scene I have skipped over, but I just loved the lines, so I nabbed them for here.
> 
> I hate trying to explain the active party. "Party" doesn't seem right, but why's she only taking three along with her? Stuff like that. Also I hate that my party tends to be repetitive. I try to mix it up, but I still feel like I'm writing about Bull and Varric way too much. I took Varric and Bull along for Adamant because Bull is hilarious in the Fade and I like having Varric and Hawke in the same place. (Also Varric's particular angst appeals to me.) I'm neglecting poor Solas. Sorry, Solas. 
> 
> There's another chapter of Adamant, four of the Fade (one is pretty long but I figured better four with one long one than five), one debrief-y chapter and THEN we get to THE GOOD STUFF. Are you excited? I'm excited.
> 
> PS Dorian is not putting magic on the rocks he's writing fighty slogans on them. Just imagine everyone else having a great time doing whatever they like during this battle.


	51. Clarel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adamant, part 2

They pick up Hawke somewhere along the way. She’s been scouting ahead and behind, quick and fierce with her daggers, keeping stragglers off their tail. It’s strange, to know so much about a person from a book. Her past, her family, her lover… Very strange. She catches him looking at her and grins. She and Varric exchange a look, and some sort of silent conversation passes between them. It’s unsettling. Blackwall decides he’ll go out of his way to avoid antagonising her.  
  
They find the centre of the fortress filled with Wardens: some mages, some not. Clarel and Erimond stand in their midst, their blood magic ritual just beginning. A rift twists in the air, and it’s unnerving the way everyone is ignoring it. A rift shouldn’t be the least terrible thing in the vicinity.  
  
Clarel puts her arms around the neck of a Warden veteran, and with a swift movement, she cuts his throat. The Inquisitor jolts, and starts forward.  
  
“Clarel, stop!”  
  
“Inquisition! You will not keep us from what needs to be done.”  
  
The Inquisitor shoots him a look over his shoulder, as if thinking, measuring. She turns her face back to Clarel, her hand clenching around her staff.  
  
“Please, Clarel. The Wardens have a proud history, an honourable history. The sacrifices you have made are known to all Thedas. I would not stand against you if I did not _know_ you were being misused. Please.”  
  
Clarel is wavering, and Erimond swears at her. For a moment Blackwall dares to hope… until Erimond raises his staff, and the dragon’s roar rips through the air.  
  
It looks, Blackwall knows, a great deal like an archdemon. They — the Inquisition — have fought dragons, and none of them have truly resembled this beast. The sight of it must have shocked Clarel into a decision, as she raises her head to call out to the other Wardens.  
  
“Help the Inquisitor!”  
  
Blackwall has only a moment to thank Andraste that the woman has seen sense before they are swarmed by demons.  
  
A Pride demon, larger and stronger than any they’ve fought before, spawns from the rift. They fall back, and the Inquisitor calls down a storm of meteors, but even with those flaming rocks crashing down on their enemies it is not an easy fight. The archdemon — lyrium-dragon, whatever it is — swoops overhead, breathing red lyrium down on their heads.  
  
When the Pride demon finally falls, they are alone. The Wardens must have fled, or chased after Erimond, wherever he’s gone. The battle on the walls still rings loud in their ears, but for a moment they can breathe.   
  
“How do we get out of here?” Varric yells over the din.  
  
“There! They went that way!” Stroud yells back, pointing up the stairs.  
  
The Inquisitor is trying to close the rift, her mark glowing green, and Blackwall runs to her side and grabs her arm.   
  
“I can’t close the rift!” she says, her face twisted into a grimace.  
  
“Leave it!”  
  
“There’s something on the other side, it’s _huge_ , and I can’t — ”  
  
“ _Leave it!_ ” Blackwall pulls her after the others until she’s running at his side. “It’s not going anywhere,” he reminds her. “You can close it when the battle’s done!”  
  
They find another gaggle of demons on the battlements above, and when they’ve struck them down, movement catches their eyes.  
  
“Clarel!” shouts Stroud. “Come on!”  
  
They follow her, and the distant shape of Erimond. The lyrium-dragon dogs their every step, even latching onto the side of the battlement to roar in their faces. The Inquisitor responds by gathering rift-magic into a great stone fist, and punching it right in its blighted face. It drops from the wall, and Blackwall grins to himself in a brief moment of satisfaction.  
  
When they round the corner they see them. Clarel has Erimond cornered at the edge of the battlements, mage against mage.  
  
“You _destroyed_ the Grey Wardens!” the woman says, magic glowing at her fists. She strikes him with lightning, sending him sprawling.  
  
“You did that yourself, you stupid bitch!” he hisses. “All I had to do was dangle a little power before you and you couldn’t _wait_ to get your hands bloody!”  
  
Clarel gathers her power to strike him again, and the dragon drops down behind her. In a second, she has disappeared between its teeth.   
  
It throws her to the ground, and for a moment, the world stops. Blackwall finds himself breathing again as she stirs. Alive. The dragon is above her, and as she gathers her power again, he reflects that it must be a Warden who kills an archdemon. If that’s what the great bloody thing is, then this is only right.  
  
It screeches as she strikes, lurching away from her, and then it’s falling, clawing at the battlements, and the stone walls crumble beneath it. Erimond disappears with the falling masonry, and panic settles in a little too late. They run. And then they fall.


	52. Into the Fade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fade, part 1

The masonry crumbles beneath the weight of the falling dragon, and he runs. Runs, and hopes to the Maker everyone else does the same. He throws a glance over his shoulder, just to satisfy himself that the Inquisitor is at his heels, and sees the edge is much close than he thought.  
  
And he is falling.   
  
And then… he isn’t.  
  
He’s floating, for a moment, before the ground materialises beneath him. He stares at it in incomprehension, waiting for the world to rearrange itself into something that makes sense. The ground is rocky, but… it’s not. And he does not think that liquid is water.  
  
“If this is the afterlife, the Chantry owes me an apology. This is _nothing_ like the Maker’s bosom.”  
  
Hawke’s quip brings him back to himself, a little. Varric’s chuckle at least lets him know the dwarf is alive, even if he can’t work out where the man’s got to. Hawke and Stroud are standing at right angles to everyone else, halfway up stalagmites… or down stalactites, he supposes. It’s not _really_ clear whether they’re truly standing on the ground, or whether this is a sort of ceiling.  
  
They gather, unsettled, unsure. Bull is emitting a constant stream of obscenities in a hushed voice, which at least stops Blackwall feeling like so much of a coward. He eyes the Inquisitor, who looks stressed and irritable. The enormity of the situation settles on him like something cold and oily; she had opened a rift into the Fade, and sent them all through. She’d saved their lives, though from the look on her face, it’s not clear that that’s what she had intended. Perhaps she acted on instinct. And now they’re stuck.  
  
“They say you walked out of the Fade at Haven,” Hawke is saying to the Inquisitor. “Was it like this?”  
  
The Inquisitor runs her hands through her hair, and curses. “Just… give me a minute! I’m not an _authority_ on the subject, all right? I did it _once_ , and I don’t even _remember_ last time.”   
  
“There was a rift in the main hall,” Stroud says. “Perhaps we can escape through there.”  
  
“There was a big demon there,” Bull reminds him. “The boss said she felt it. Like it was waiting.”  
  
“Yes. But right now there’s no other way,” says the Inquisitor. “Come on.”  
  
As they pick their way through the Fade after her, the Iron Bull affects a high-pitched tone.   
  
“’Hey chief, let’s join the Inquisition! Good fights for a good cause!’ I don’t know, Krem. I hear there are demons. ‘Oh, don’t worry about the demons, chief! I’m sure we won’t see many.’” He growls. “I can’t believe I listened to that ASSHOLE.”  
  
Blackwall chuckles at him, amused despite his own sense of unease. That oily feeling. The Fade. He is _in_ the Fade. _Physically_ in the Fade.   
  
“I don’t like it,” he says to Bull. “This place is _wrong_.”  
  
“Yeah, no kidding.” He raises his voice. “Hey, guys, if I get possessed, feint on my blind side and then go low. Cullen says I leave myself open.”  
  
“Good to know,” Blackwall murmurs. He watches the Qunari out of the corner of his eye. No signs of possession so far… How does one know if they’re possessed? Maybe _he’s_ possessed, and just doesn’t know it yet. Well, no matter. If he is, the Inquisitor will take him down.  
  
Although… she’s far too interested in this place for his liking.  
  
“There’s something here,” says the Inquisitor, pausing before a small table. “Like a… a _fear_. You can feel it.” She narrows her eyes. “A fear of the dark. They were at Haven. They didn’t want to die, and they’re afraid of the dark…” She looks around, poking behind odd rocks. She returns, triumphant, with a candle, and lights it on the table. “There. A candle for the Pilgrim.”  
  
“Is this… really necessary, my lady?” Blackwall asks her, shifting from foot to foot. “We don’t want to spend any longer in here than necessary.”  
  
“It only took a moment. If you’d stood where I was standing, you would want to help them as well.”  
  
“Maybe standing where you were standing wasn’t the best idea,” he says. “There are demons here who will want to trick you, my lady…”  
  
“I’m a _mage_ , Blackwall. I’ve been aware of that all my life.” She tilts her head to examine the weird, shifting sky. “This is _fascinating_. Do you think Solas will be jealous?”   
  
Blackwall discovers what she had meant about the fear just moments later. He steps onto a patch of ground that looks no different to any other, and like a light snuffed he _feels_ the fear oozing in the air around him. The Inquisitor notices his discomfort, and trots over to him. There’s a letter - he hadn’t even seen it, but there it is, just sitting on a rock, where a letter shouldn’t be.   
  
As she reads it, her eyes grow bright, and she wipes fiercely at the moisture gathering there. She passes it on to him.  
  
It’s from one of their soldiers, written to the Maker. The poor lad - he’d survived the Blight, the darkspawn attack at Denerim, the explosion at the Temple, the attack at Haven, and now…   
  
“Is he dead, do you think?” Blackwall wonders aloud, passing the letter on to Varric.  
  
The dwarf skims the letter and grimaces. “I don’t suppose it matters, if we can’t get out of here,” he says. He folds the letter up, and slips it inside his coat. “If he’s not now, he will be soon enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awkward chapter is awkward. Oh well. 
> 
> I gave my Inquisitor a little more knowledge about the Fade than you really get in-game. The Fade is an emotional place when it comes to, e.g., the Blight and all these people who suffered and died and all that. It's such a big part of it that I had to include it, but you can't just have Inky running around reading shit and being like "oh man, this is so sad etc" as everything is filtered through Blackwall's perspective. So she has to show a little more leadership insofar as Fadey stuff goes so that Blackwall can experience it too.
> 
> Plus she's a MAGE. There really wasn't enough "oh hey it's the Fade, this is fucking awesome lemme take some notes" stuff for mages while you were actually in the Fade. You got some of that talking to companions afterwards, but not at the time. 
> 
> PS Bull is hilarious in the Fade and if you don't bring him with you you're wrong. His impersonation of Krem is one of the best things in the game.


	53. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fade, part 2

They follow the Inquisitor between two sculptures that look far too much like something from the Free Marches. It makes Blackwall feel a little ill, and wonder if the places is taking shape around his memories. Why the Free Marches? 

The Inquisitor has stopped. He drags his gaze from the statuary, and sees a woman, tall, and glowing. He puts his hand on his sword.

“Divine Justinia?” Hawke asks.

The Inquisitor shakes her head, and speaks directly to the figure.  “You’re  _ not _ her. What are you? A spirit, a demon? ”

“You think my survival so unlikely?” the spirit asks. “You do not remember what happened at Haven. But y _ou_ survived, did you not, Inquisitor? ”

She is not convinced.  “The  _ real _ Justinia would have no way to know my title. ”

“How difficult is it to answer a simple question?” Hawke taunts the thing. “I’m a human, and you are…?”

The Divine, Blackwall notices, does not answer the question. But, spirit or not, it  _ is _ helpful. 

“The demon of this place is a nightmare. It is what torments you when you sleep, and disappears on waking. It feeds off your memories of fear and darkness.”

“The false Calling!” Stroud exclaims, and the figure nods. 

“Its work. It is, after all, what all Wardens fear.” It turns its glowing face to the Inquisitor. “The demon took a part of you at Haven. Before you can leave, you _must_ recover it. ” She turns, and gestures to something in the shifting Fade that Blackwall cannot see. “These are your memories, Inquisitor.”

There are wraiths guarding the place, but they are easily dispatched, and the Inquisitor gathers her memories to her. It seems  _ she _ can see them easily enough, and trots from one to the other in the muck, holding out her hand, anchor glowing, to bring them back to her. Each time, parts of the memory echo in the Fade around them: the Divine crying out  “Run while you can!”; Corypheus’s voice, calling for the sacrifice.

After the fourth time the Inquisitor staggers, and Blackwall reaches out to steady her, only to have the world melt away and rebuild itself.

The Temple. Corypheus. 

Wardens.

For a moment he ’s shocked, can’t believe it could be Wardens. Then the Divine knocks the orb from Corypheus’s hand, and the Inquisitor lunges for it. Green light flares, knocking the monster back as he reaches for her. 

The memory dissipates. Blackwall sees the Inquisitor before him once more, her face softened by a smile.

“It _wasn_ _’t_ Andraste, ” she says, with a little satisfaction.

No, not Andraste after all. Her  _ own  _ actions; brave, if a little stupid, not knowing what the orb could have done to her. Blackwall smiles at himself and shakes his head. Strange... knowing that she isn ’t directly blessed by Andraste makes him feel a little less sacrilegious about bedding her.

“You must face the demon and the fears he finds within you,” the Divine-spirit says. “That is the only way to get out of here. I will clear your way.”

The spirit floats off, and they continue their trudge towards the distant rift. Varric nudges the Inquisitor as they go, and asks if she ’s all right.

“Stealing people’s memories,” he says, “that’s low. Memories make us what we _are_. A monster that steals them … I don’t even want to _think_ about that. ”

“It _is_ unnerving, now I consider it, though I didn ’t really know what I’d lost at the time,” she responds. “I... I feel… _fuller_ now. More complete. I suppose it ’s one thing to forget things on your own, and another to have them taken from you.”

As they raise their weapons against another group of demons, a black and oily voice begins to speak. As soon as he hears it, Blackwall feels sick. He ’s not even sure if  _ hearing  _ is the right word, if it ’s truly sound in the air or if it’s speaking directly to their minds. Either way it is unpleasant, and it sets his resolve. The  _ thing  _ needs to die. They need to end it.  


“ **Ah,”** says the voice, **“we have a visitor. Some silly little girl comes to steal the fear I kindly lifted from her shoulders.”**

Blackwall feels resentment rush through him at that phrase.  _ Silly little girl _ , indeed. But the Inquisitor ’s expression doesn’t change. She fights on as if the monster were not even speaking.

“ **You should have thanked me, and left the fear where it lay. You think the pain will make you** _ **stronger**_ **? The only one who grows stronger from your fears is** _ **me**_ **. But you are a guest here, in my home, so by all means let me return what you have forgotten.** **”**

It sounds like a threat, and that disturbs him, stupid as he knows that is. The thing  _ lives _ on fear. He shouldn ’t give the monster any more material than it already has. He tries to focus on the fight, on striking down demon after demon.

The Iron Bull pulls his axe from the last fallen demon, and grunts in satisfaction. 

“Guess this nightmare isn’t such hot shit after all.”

“These are likely just servants of the true demon,” Stroud tells him.

“Just let me have this moment to hope, all right?”

“You all heard its voice, did you?” the Inquisitor asks them, standing beneath a great tilted idol. She nods as they answer in the affirmative. “Demons will say anything to you to win you over. They will lie and cajole and promise things. This demon… it can see your fears. It may even speak the truth. Do not listen to it. Don’t open up your mind to it. Whatever it says, it’s wrong. Ignore it, tell it to fuck off, and we’ll all get out of here. All right?”

“Nice pep talk, boss.”

“Thank you, Bull. Come on.”

Inside an overhang of rock, she finds something, a faint glow, and brings them all to stand in it, one by one. All except Bull, who cannot be enticed to touch anything in this place. As Blackwall takes his turn to step into the pale glow, the fear drops into his mind as if whispered to him. 

_ I watched the Blight take my land. I had nowhere to go. I tended the fields as I had, even as my flock died and my family sickened. My body wracked with pains and chills, I saw too late the poison that had crept into the land. In my fever dreams, the sickness covered this whole world, and I wept in fear for the family I killed with my foolish pride.  
Show me that this world survives. Show me that the poison does not take everything. _

He steps out from under the overhang, his face twisted. 

“He died?” Varric asks, knowing the answer already.

“’Show me that the poison does not take everything.’ How?”

“We’re not actually doing this, are we?” The Iron Bull looks from one to the other. “Guys? Boss? Tell me we’re not doing this.”

“We’re bringing a soul some peace. Start looking, Bull.”

In the end it ’s Hawke who finds the flowers, clinging to life somehow in the muck. Flowers do not suit her, and she looks odd, carrying them to the spot the Inquisitor has shown them. When she places them down, her expression changes.

“That’s better,” she says. “It worked.”

“Worth doing, then?” the Inquisitor teases her.

“Worth doing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters wherein there's a lot of interesting *stuff* going on that I want to touch on, but also I don't want it to be *only* that. 
> 
> So... you may have noticed, but I don't recruit Cole. I have various reasons for disliking him - a spirit of compassion shouldn't be so blind to other people's feelings! Why would you say that shit out loud I mean come on now - but one of the biggest ones is what Varric says in the Fade when you take back your memories. That shit is low... and that's what Cole does to you if you tell him to go. I feel pretty much the same way Varric does about stuff like that so Cole makes me very uncomfortable. When I choose the mages, I just never go looking for him. Frankly, I enjoy the story better without him. Sorry, Cole.
> 
> I also have a lot of complicated emotions about Anders and what happened to him after Justice. Justice was a good guy! I mean he was, you know, a rad enough dude. He wouldn't have wanted anything bad like that to happen. But nevertheless, holy shit, he DESTROYED Anders. So I'm gun-shy about spirits that appear to be nice.


	54. Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fade, part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry updates have been sporadic. I know it's shitty when we're in the Fade and a lot really depends on the momentum of the story. I have a lot of assignments due this month and an exam in early November, so I've been stressing out and focusing on those instead. Things should pick up again after that.

  
The Fade has more horrors for them.

Hideous, warped approximations of genlocks crawl out of nowhere, and Blackwall shudders, tightening his grip on his sword.  
  
“What the crap are _those_ supposed to be?” Bull asks.  
  
“Fears.” The Inquisitor fells another one with a flash of fire. "Can you see them? War, death...."  
  
“I fucking _hate_ this place.”  
  
But they are easily killed, and when they move on, the Nightmare starts taunting them again.  
  
_Desperate_ , Blackwall thinks to himself. _He doesn’t expect us to succeed. Yet here we are, killing everything he throws at us._  
  
**“Perhaps _I_ should be afraid,”** the monster says, terrible voice twisted with sarcasm. **“Fighting the most powerful members of the Inquisition.”** He chuckles. **“Like Blackwall. Ah, there’s nothing like a Grey Warden. And you are NOTHING like a Grey Warden.”**  
  
Blackwall grits his teeth. “I’ll show you a Warden’s strength, beast,” he mutters.  
  
The Nightmare continues its taunting, as they cut their way through its servants.  
  
**“The Qunari will make a lovely host for one of my minions. Or maybe I will ride his body myself.”**  
  
Next to him on the battlefield, Blackwall hears Bull snarl in response, “I’d like to see you try.”  
  
“He’s desperate,” he says to Bull. “Trying to make us squirm.”  
  
“Fat chance. We’re going to kill all his little buddies, and then we’re going to kill _him_.”  
  
Demons felled, they push forward. The monster tries again.  
  
**“Once again Hawke is in danger because of _you_ , Varric. _You_ found the red lyrium. _You_ brought Hawke here.”**  
  
Blackwall shoots a look at the dwarf. He knows just how much that will cut.  
  
“Just keep talking, Smiley,” Varric mumbles. “Just keep talking.”  
  
A muscle twitches in the Inquisitor's cheek as she glances back over her shoulder. “When we get out of here,” she says, “I’m going to buy you all a drink. And then I’m going to sit you down and tell you how much I value having you in the Inquisition. And then I’m going to give you all a big hug.”  
  
“Sorry for dragging us here, Inquisitor?” Varric chuckles. “If it was between this and becoming a thin patina on the rocks below, I think this was the better option.”  
  
More of the small fears swarm them, and Hawke swears as she stabs one in the back.  
  
“Of _course_ they had to look like spiders,” she says.  
  
“You saw spiders?!” Bull gapes at her. " _I_ didn't see spiders. I _want_ to see spiders. Give me spiders!"  
  
“They must take on the form of something we fear,” Hawke muses. “I suppose it _could_ be worse than spiders. What do you see, Inquisitor?”  
  
She hesitates. “I… I see…” she makes a gesture of confusion. “Those last ones… The Blight. The Harrowing. Mages. Templars. They don’t… they don’t have a _shape_ , they’re just…” She trails off. “Anyway, they’re horrible. I don’t like looking at them.”  
  
“You’re a strange person, aren’t you?”  
  
“Maybe it’s a mage thing,” she shrugs. “Come on.”  
  
**“Did you think it _mattered_ , Hawke?”** the Nightmare oozes as they push forward. **“Did you think _anything_ you did mattered? Couldn’t even save your city - how do you expect to strike down a god? Fenris is going to die, just like your family, and everyone you’ve ever cared about.”**  
  
“Well…” the Champion makes a face. “That’s going to grow tiresome quickly.”  
  
The Divine is waiting for them, hovering.  
  
“The Nightmare is closer now,” the spirit says. “It knows you seek its gate. With each moment, it grows stronger. You must hurry.”  
  
More of the Inquisitor's memories are here. Blackwall knows she has to take them all, to retrieve from the monster all he stole from her. But it unsettles him. When she takes the first, the sound that rings through the air is a scream. Her scream. It rips through him; he knows, on some deep, prehistoric level, that it was a scream not of fear, but of pain. The touch of the orb...? It must be. Two more memories are the voice of the Divine, calling for her to run.  
  
She steadies herself before the last one, and holds out her hand.  
  
They are at Haven, in the Fade. A great tower of rock - the Temple of Sacred Ashes? - stabs up into the sky. The incline is almost vertical, but the Inquisitor still scrambles at the rock, reaching out for the hand of the Divine who stands above. Fears are chasing her, climbing faster than she can, and when the Divine pulls her to the top, she stops. The Inquisitor shouts at her to hurry, to follow her into the rift, but it is too late. The fears take the woman, and tear her apart.  
  
“It was you,” the Inquisitor breathes as the memory fades. “Or… or the Divine. She died to make sure I could escape.”  
  
“So this creature is simply a spirit,” Stroud says.  
  
The spirit looks a little saddened. “I am sorry if I disappoint you,” it says, rising. Its form changes, shimmers: a figure of glowing gold.  
  
“We’re not disappointed. Spirit or not, you’ve proven yourself an ally,” the Inquisitor says. She cocks her head at the spirit. “Were you… watching her? The way the Nightmare watched Corypheus. Were you inspired by her faith to take her form?”  
  
“If that is the story you wish to tell, it is not a bad one.”  
  
The Inquisitor rolls her eyes. “ _Spirits,_ ” she sighs. “You’re not very forthcoming, are you?”  
  
Hawke and Stroud, standing behind, have started sniping at one another again. More arguments about the Grey Wardens in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The Inquisitor shoots them an annoyed look as their voices grow louder.  
  
“How _dare_ you judge us?” Stroud's voice rises to a shout. “You tore Kirkwall apart, and started the mage rebellion!”  
  
“To protect innocent mages, not madmen drunk on blood magic!” she snaps back. “Of course, you’d ignore that. You can’t imagine a world without Wardens, even if that might be what we need!”  
  
“What are you saying?” Blackwall blurts out in shock. “You want to _get rid_ of the Wardens? Everyone makes mistakes. They would’ve died to save us!”  
  
_Get rid_ of the Wardens. It’s unthinkable. When they’ve done so much for Thedas, sacrificed their lives to save the world time and time again. They may have done terrible things, but they did them because they could think of no other way to protect Orlais from a future Blight. _Their intentions were good._ Whatever Wardens do, their intentions are good.  
  
“They _are_ the only ones who know how to stop the Blight,” Bull points out. “We might need ‘em.”  
  
Varric sighs, and rubs his forehead. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. “There are a few good ones, but an awful lot of the Wardens I’ve known went crazy.”  
  
Blackwall shoots the dwarf a sour look. Does he think _he’s_ crazy? Probably, come to that. Wandering the wilderness all on his own. Varric meets his eyes, and gives him a weak smile, and Blackwall decides not to take it personally.  
  
“ _Enough!_ ” The Inquisitor strikes her staff against the ground. “We can argue about whose fault it is _when we get out of here_.”  
  
The spirit at her shoulder makes a sound of agreement. “The Nightmare has found us,” it says. “We cannot stop!”


	55. The Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fade, part 4.
> 
> Alternative title: Thank Andraste That's Over

More fears descend upon them. The Inquisitor names them all when they have fallen, and the nature and breadth of people’s fears is a sad and solemn thing. Corpses. Darkspawn. The Maker. Demons. Abominations. Blood magic. Possession.  
  
Bull shifts from foot to foot. “I think some of _those_ ones were mine,” he says.  
  
“And we killed them,” the Inquisitor points out. “Come on.”  
  
 **“Warden Stroud,”** comes the Nightmare’s voice. **“How does it feel to devote your whole life to the Wardens, and watch them fall? Or worse… To know that you are responsible for their destruction? When the next Blight comes, will they curse your name?”**  
  
Stroud’s fault? How can it be Stroud’s fault? Blackwall shoots the man a look, but his face is set, determined.  
  
“With the Maker’s blessing,” the Warden says, “we will end this wretched beast.”  
  
The Nightmare is seething.   
  
_We’re rattling it,_ Blackwall thinks with a smile.  
  
 **“Do you think you can fight _me_?”** the monster rages. **“I am your every fear come to life. I am the veiled hand of Corypheus himself. The demon army you fear? _I_ command it. They are bound all through me.”**  
  
“Ah,” says the golden spirit, something like amusement in its voice, “so if we kill you, we destroy the demons. Thank you, ‘every fear come to life’.”  
  
The Nightmare roars in frustration, and Blackwall chuckles. Yes, they’re rattling it. The battle’s half-won. Not far to go now.  
  
They find another restless spirit, hovering over a campfire. The Inquisitor stands near it for only a moment before coming to take both Blackwall and Stroud by the sleeve, and pulling them towards the shade. As before, the knowledge comes to him as if whispered.  
  
 _I joined the Wardens to serve in glory. No blade could touch me, nor any claw pierce my armour. Still, I was fated by Joining to die. Alone in the Deep Roads, the Calling in my mind, I sat by the last campfire I would see, allowing myself one last night of terror, and cursed the fate that brought me here._  
 _Let it be my choice to have served and died. Let it be nobility rather than the dread hand of fate. Destroy my destiny, and let this be my decision._  
  
The plaintive cry of it lingers, even after he steps away. To be alone, down there… to _know_ you were so vastly outnumbered, that death was inevitable. To hear that horrific song in your mind.   
  
“What does he want?” Blackwall wonders aloud.  
  
“We will know it when we see it,” the Inquisitor replies.  
  
It takes them longer, this time. They have no idea what they’re looking for. It is Varric who finds the deck of tarot cards next to a skeleton, hidden away behind a rock, and has the bright idea to burn them.   
  
“Destroying destiny, see?” he says, dropping them into the fire, one by one. “The poor sod just wanted to know he had some free will. That his end was more than just tradition and fear.”  
  
“Sure, but what does that have to do with tarot cards?”  
  
Varric shrugs. “Maybe if there’s nothing to show you the future, _you_ get to decide what it is. 'Destroy my destiny', he said.” He reaches up to pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t think about it too much, Hero. It satisfied him, that’s what counts.”  
  
They find another, this one floating above a bed. It seems… small. Smaller than the others. When Blackwall steps close enough to hear it, he realises with a jolt that it’s a child.  
  
 _Haven is burned. Mama cries when I’m not looking. It’s cold in the mountains, and my feet hurt, but Mama says to hush, that others have it worse. She says a monster named Corypheus came to Haven, and it was only the Maker’s blessing that let us escape. I don’t feel blessed. The Monsters come every night when I sleep, and I don’t want to wake Mama crying again._  
 _I miss Ser Snort. Ser Snort always kept the monsters away in my dreams._  
  
“We’re looking for a knight?” Stroud wonders, his forehead furrowing.  
  
“A stuffed toy, I fancy,” Hawke says archly.   
  
Blackwall does not search as hard as he might. It bothers him, that he cannot remember the child. He must have died somewhere between Haven and Skyhold. How many had they lost on that trek? A dozen? More? Most had survived, at least those that hadn’t been nursing wounds from the attack.   
  
_You’d been worrying over the Inquisitor,_ he remembers. _The Maker sees the fall of every sparrow, not you._   
  
Still, it bothers him. A dead child. You’d think you’d remember that. He _should_ have remembered that.   
  
He’s brooding over it, looking out over the Fade without seeing, when the Inquisitor comes to rest a hand on his shoulder.   
  
“You found it, then?” he asks her, and she nods.   
  
“A stuffed nug. There’s something else down below, and I want to take a look. I don’t want to leave this monster any extra servants to call on when we finally take it down.”  
  
There are few demons below. They find another shade: one of the first to call themselves a Grey Warden, seeking the way to kill the archdemon, and leave it dead. Stroud knows at once what they are looking for, and races off in search of it.  
  
 _Good thing he’s here, or they’d be asking **you** about it,_ Blackwall smirks at himself.   
  
They follow Stroud along the Fade’s strange coast, under the floating hunks of rock and across a great spiral carved into the ground. Beyond it, flush against the rock, is a small cemetery. A strange thing to find in the Fade, but then what did he know about it? Maybe every gravestone ever raised had some equivalent in the Fade. Maybe each soul lingered here just a little before moving on.  
  
The Inquisitor bends to read one, and straightens with an _“Oh.”_  
  
“What is it?” He draws up behind her, hand at the small of her back, and looks over her shoulder.   
  
There is a name on the stone, and what can only be a fear, written like a cause of death. _Cassandra: Helplessness._  
  
That… that did sound like her, right enough. But how did the beast know? Was it watching _all_ of them? And for how long?  
  
Varric reads his aloud, and chuckles. “ _Became his parents._ How do you die from that, exactly? Boredom?”  
  
Hawke reaches over to squeeze his shoulder. “You will never become your parents, Varric. For one thing, your parents would never have managed to get themselves sucked into the Fade and fighting a nightmare.”  
  
“Ha, _that’s_ true!”  
  
They’re revealing, these stones. Solas: Dying alone. Poor bugger, spent all that time out chasing dreams; how often, before he came to Haven, did he ever have a conversation with a real, living person?… Sera: The nothing. She’s often shared her fears, when something strange has happened. Fear of the Maker, and of the lack of him. Big things scare her. She’s not alone there… Vivienne: Irrelevance. Ha!… Dorian: Temptation. Temptation of what? Blood magic, demons? His Tevinter countrymen?… Iron Bull: Madness. He shoots a look at the man, standing with his arms folded and a deep frown on his face. He’d seen his share of madness in Seheron, Blackwall knew.  
  
At last he stops beside the stone that must be his, and for a brief moment he’s just glad to see that the name it bears is _Blackwall_. Then he reads the fear: Himself.  
  
He stares at it for a while, feeling cold, feeling he’s lived long past his time.   
  
“I’ve got it,” Stroud says, lifting something above his head. “A vial of darkspawn blood. A Warden isn’t a Warden without it. Come on, we’ll give it to the spirit, or whatever it is, and then we can leave. We must be close now.”  
  
Blackwall lets the others follow him, and stays, walking slowly among the stones. He doesn’t look up until he feels the Inquisitor’s hand on his arm.   
  
She gives him an unsure smile, and squeezes his arm.  
  
“No stone with your name on it,” he says, and hopes she hasn’t seen his.  
  
“I don’t know why,” she replies. “And why the others? They’re not even here to read them.”  
  
“Did you see Madame Vivienne’s? Heh. _Irrelevance_.”  
  
She chuckles a little. “Yes. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for her, or annoyed that something that seems so small is so large in her mind.” She shifts her shoulders under her light armour. “Right now, I’d give almost anything to be irrelevant.”  
  
The others return, satisfied, and they follow the Inquisitor up a set of wide, crumbling stairs. Before them hovers the golden spirit that has assumed the form of the Divine. Behind her, a tunnel through the rock, and beyond, the curving green of the rift.  
  
“You must get through the rift, Inquisitor!” it cries as more fears and demons descend. “Get through, and then slam it shut with all your strength. You’ll banish the army of demons, and exile this cursed creature to the farthest reaches of the Fade!”  
  
“Give us a bloody minute!” the Inquisitor shouts back. He can hear her naming every fear as it falls to her magic. Poverty, sickness, debilitation, senility. Drowning, fire, blood, darkness, corruption.  
  
At last the path is clear. Hawke leaps forward to the Inquisitor’s side.   
  
“The rift! We’re almost there!”  
  
“Oh, _nice,_ Hawke!” Varric scolds her as they run through the cave. “Why not just _dare_ the old gods to try and stop you?”  
  
Then they are free of the rock… and they see the Nightmare.  
  
It is… horrific. Huge beyond comprehension. Like some vast, twisted spider with too many eyes, _Maker, far_ too many eyes. They look out of every surface of its corrupted body, and it laughs.   
  
The spirit flies towards it, blazing golden.   
  
“Inquisitor,” it says, “if you would, please tell Leliana ‘I am sorry. I failed you too’.”  
  
Then, with a flash, it is gone, and with it, the Nightmare. Or most of it.  
  
It has left some aspect of itself, a demon not too dissimilar from the powerful undead spirits they put down in the Exalted Plains. Great spider legs jut from its back, and in the Nightmare’s black tar voice it says, **“I grow fat on your fear.”**  
  
“Not for long.” The Inquisitor lifts her hand to rip the Fade in two, and it is trapped, held in her glowing green grasp.   
  
Blackwall charges towards it, using the time she has bought them to do as much damage as he can to the monster. But it is not long enough. It rips itself free, moving faster than he can follow.  
  
“There!” Bull yells to him.  
  
It is focused on the Inquisitor, swiping at her with its great long claws, and with a booming laugh it calls forth more fears. She Fade-steps out of its reach, nimble, and sends a fist of rock to knock it back.   
  
“She has it!” Blackwall calls to the others. “Keep the fears off her back!”  
  
With every fear and demon he kills he checks on her, to find her turning it to ice or setting it alight by turns. At last there are no more fears rushing to defend their master, and they close in on the Nightmare, blades ready.   
  
It screams as it falls, in frustration as much as anything, and rift is so close.  
  
He shoots a look at the Inquisitor, unsure, and she screams at them to run. They do.  
  
With his eyes closed Blackwall jumps into the rift, and tumbles to the ground on the other side.   
  
He picks himself up off the stones, half-stunned by the sheer solidity of the world he has returned to. The fort is filled with Wardens, some still grappling with demons, yet it somehow seems _normal_ in comparison to the Fade. He turns, and locks eyes first with Varric, then with Bull.   
  
The others are not there.   
  
Slowly, he turns back to look at the rift.   
  
“Where are they?” Varric asks, with a tremor in his voice. “What’s taking them so long?”  
  
“Come on,” Blackwall mutters. “Come on, Lady Lavellan. We can’t do this without you.”  
  
The wait is excruciating. His chest burns, and he realises he’s holding his breath. He gasps for air just as the rift flashes, and Hawke falls through.   
  
The Inquisitor joins her a second later. She lands in a crouch, and rises, her hand blazing. As she clenches her fist, the rift closes, and every demon dies in a paroxysm of green light.   
  
A cheer ripples through the crowd, and Blackwall resists the urge to rush forward and capture her in a hug. She’d done it. Now it was time for her to bask in her glory.  
  
A Warden comes forward, to fill her in on what had occurred while they’d been in the Fade. Looking around, he inquires after Stroud, and the Inquisitor’s face grows solemn.  
  
“Stroud didn’t make it,” she says. “He died a hero.”  
  
The Warden gapes at her. “But we have no one left of any significant rank,” he says. “What do we do now?”  
  
For a brief moment of horror Blackwall thinks she might do something daft like appoint _him_ their leader. Instead, she conscripts them. They may still be vulnerable to Corypheus, but she sees their value, and she wants them on the Inquisition’s side. He’s proud of that — that, despite it all, the Wardens still have her respect. He dares to wonder that perhaps _he_ had something to do with that.  
  
They follow her back down to the gates of the fortress, tired and battered, but triumphant. They pick up others on their way: Cassandra, full of questions about the Fade. Dorian, cheerful, clapping the Inquisitor on the back. Sera, who gives them a full account of her own experience of the battle, complete with sound effects.   
  
As they reach the gates the Inquisitor calls out to Commander Cullen, who throws aside all ceremony when he sees them to walk forward and envelop the Inquisitor in a hug.  
  
“You did it!” he cries as he releases her. “What a victory! You’ve struck a strong blow against Corypheus today, Inquisitor.”  
  
“We _all_ did it, Cullen,” she says with a smile. “How are our troops?”  
  
He looks as exhausted as any of them, but draws the Inquisitor aside to debrief her immediately. They had lost many soldiers, yes, but not as many as they could have. Clarel is dead, Erimond in their custody. Their victory is a significant one.   
  
After a while, it becomes clear their discussions are going to last well into the night. Blackwall considers making himself useful in some way, tending to the wounded, or carrying water, when Varric claps a hand across his back.  
  
“Come on, Hero,” he says, his voice weary. “After what we’ve been through, we all need a drink.”  
  
Adamant has an extensive cellar. Happily, the fighting has not damaged it. They all withdraw to a campfire at the edges of the main force, and break open a few casks.   
  



	56. "Nothing Like a Grey Warden"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road home from Adamant

Adamant took it out of everyone. And the Fade... Bull still looks shaken beyond anything Blackwall has ever seen, and Varric has a haunted look in his eyes. He and Hawke had been all but joined at the hip until the Champion left for Weishaupt. And no wonder; they'd nearly lost her in the Fade.  
  
It's not right, seeing Varric like that. Maker knows what would have happened if they'd lost her. It had been the Inquisitor’s order alone that brought Hawke back instead of Stroud, and Varric hovers close to her now. Between them they share a silent comfort and support.   
  
They’d almost lost the Inquisitor, too. That… that’s hard to think about.   
  
He knows she has made time, with the others. Even with Hawke, though they barely know each other. She’s laid a hand on their shoulders and led them away from camp with a bottle and a lantern to sit out somewhere, and talk, or not.   
  
Blackwall has been avoiding her, he would have to admit. The Fade has left them all raw. The demon had clawed into their minds, under their skin... He's still disturbed by it, even now. He sets himself apart from the others, painstakingly reconstructing all his walls. He sees her mostly at night, when she comes to his tent and slips into his bedroll next to him, and they lie awake in each other's arms in the darkness.  
  
The Inquisitor, in some ways, does not seem so affected as the rest of them. True, the great, many-eyed fear demon has already claimed a place in her nightmares; more than once she has woken him in her thrashing. One unfortunate night she accidentally set fire to their bedding, an event which chased her from his tent for much of the remainder of the journey. But in her waking hours, she seems steady, more self-assured. She did, after all, come out of the Fade this time with more than she had gone into it. She had taken back what the demon stole from her, and returned more whole, more assured. Even her control over the anchor seems stronger.   
  
She comes to him in his tent one evening, earlier than usual, and he knows his turn has come. She does not lead him away from camp, simply checks to ensure no one is about, then loosens the tie to the tent flaps. He does not expect her to ask him about the gravestone that bore his name.   
  
“They were our greatest fears,” she says, hanging back by the the tent flap. “Yours was _yourself_. But that’s… that makes no sense, Blackwall. Why are you scared of _yourself_?” She steps forward, reaching out, then hesitating. “ _I'm_ not scared of you. You're a good man, why...”  
  
He shakes his head, backing away from her as far as he can go.   
  
“You don't understand,” he tells her, memories wrapping their tendrils of fear around his mind. “You're young; why would you? You've no _idea_ the regrets a man can have, the things a man can _do_. You don't think I worry about hurting you? About – ” He stops, cursing himself, and pushes his hair back away from his face. “You told us not to listen to that thing!”  
  
“That doesn’t mean all the things it said had no truth to them.” She folds her arms across her chest. “If it was _just_ a lie, it wouldn’t affect us. It had access to our minds. It picked things that it knew would get under our skin. _That’s_ why I told you not to listen.” She studies his face. “ _'You are nothing like a Grey Warden’_ , it said. It’s not true… but you must feel that way. Why?”  
  
He turns from her, hands clenching, unclenching. He can feel himself sweating under her gaze.   
  
“And what about you?” he asks, staring at the tent canvas. “It didn’t speak of _your_ fears. Just that it had taken them from you. That you should have left them where they lay.”  
  
“It wanted to keep me from picking up the pieces of myself. That’s all. It toyed with me the same as it did the rest of you: by saying I was weak. A silly little girl, it said.”  
  
“Yet you’re the only one whose mind wasn’t tipped out all over the floor for everyone to see.” He turns back to her, face contorting. “ _What do you fear?_ ”  
  
“ _Failure_ ,” she says, her brows knotting, her eyes too blue. “How can you _not know_ that, Blackwall? I've _seen_ what will happen if I fail. That dark future, the demon army... I've already lost my clan, my entire family. I don't want to be responsible for the end of the world. I saw you _die_.” She shudders, and looks away. “There is every chance I'll... I'll get killed by some bear, or stabbed by a Red Templar, or get the Blight sickness fighting stupid Hurlocks. And then the whole world will be destroyed, and it will be _my_ fault. Silly little girl, playing at Inquisitor, thinking she can save the world! I’m so _afraid_ that I can’t do it! How can you not – ” She breaks off, and turns to leave.   
  
His throat chokes with self-recrimination, and he lunges after her, catching her arm.   
  
“My lady... Love...” He softens his grip, and she allows him to pull her back towards him, to take her hands. He lifts one to his face, and cradles it against his cheek, closing his eyes. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I know that's what you fear. I know how much the dark future you saw scared you. How heavy the weight is that you carry on your shoulders.” He opens his eyes, jaw tightening. “But I _promise_ you, you won't ever fall to the Blight. You won't get killed by some bear. I'll die before I let anything happen to you. I'd go to the farthest reaches of the Deep Roads to keep you safe. I'd fall on my own sword rather than see you hurt.”  
  
Tears are shining in her eyes, and she nods, rubbing her thumb against his cheek.   
  
“I know,” she says, sniffing. “I'm sorry. I’m sorry I took you there, to the Fade; I’m sorry for what it said to you. I just…” Her face crumples, and tears fall. “You're such a _good man_ , Blackwall. Despite the Calling, Corypheus... You've never faltered. You can't really believe that you're so _terrible_.”  
  
He takes her in his arms and cradles her against his chest.  
  
He can't explain it to her, and it crawls on his skin, like darkspawn blood, cold and putrid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo are you fuckers ready because shit's about to get emotional in here
> 
> "This chapter's already emotional"
> 
> MORE emotional.


	57. Mornay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall makes a discovery, and a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all knew we'd reach this point eventually.

He hears not long after they return to Skyhold: the name “Callier”, mentioned by one of the spymaster’s men as he brings his horse to the stable. Suspicious, he offers to take care of the man’s horse and tack — “why don’t you have a hot bath and a drink? You look like you need it” — and takes the opportunity to ransack his saddlebags.  
  
There, in the middle of a dozen other reports. The phrase “Callier Massacre” catches his eye, and he stuffs the sheet of paper into his gambeson. When the horse has been cared for, and the tack put away, he sends the man’s saddlebags off with a stableboy and slinks his way up to the hayloft.   
  
He pulls the piece of paper from his gambeson, and smooths the wrinkles from it as he reads.  
  
 _Lieutenant Cyril Mornay, one of the soldiers responsible for the Callier Massacre of 9:37, was captured in Lydes. Like the others who were arrested for their involvement, Mornay insists that he did not know who he was assassinating, and that he was just following the orders of his captain. This captain, Thom Rainier, is still at large. Mornay is to be executed within the week in Val Royeaux._  
  
Fuck.  
  
Mornay. They’re going to hang Mornay. How can he — how can he let them kill Mornay? He was just a soldier. Following orders. He wasn’t _responsible._  
  
He stuffs the letter down between two barrels of hay and runs his fingers through his hair. No… no. This can’t happen. He can’t let this happen. This is _not right!_  
  
A memory stirs: a puppy on the city streets. A stray; innocent. His friends, other scruffy youngsters, had hanged the poor creature. Instead of doing something — attacking them, calling an adult — he had run away. Strange how life bloody repeats itself.  
  
Nothing seems to keep his mind off Mornay. He paces the ramparts for hours. When the guards begin to give him strange looks, he tracks down Cassandra and convinces the Seeker to spar with him, only to beg off after only a few rounds. The woman’s very nature is an accusation. He can’t bloody bear it.  
  
 Mornay’s face haunts him, then Callier’s, then the faces of his murdered family. Those children. Blood, so much blood. How could there be so much blood in bodies so little? A dozen other faces, of soldiers, men who had trusted him, looked up to him. Stroud, giving his life to save Hawke and the Inquisitor in the Fade. Blackwall, finding him in that tavern. Blackwall, dead with a Hurlock’s sword in his gut.  
  
How can he live under that man’s name, and let this happen?  
  
Reality has seeped back into the lie of a life he has built for himself. He knows, try as he might to deny it, that his past can’t be avoided any longer. His time with the Inquisition has come to an end. He can’t let Mornay hang, not for Rainier’s crimes. And even if he forgot the man, if he turned away and pretended it was none of his business, that he wasn’t responsible… he couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t hear people call him _Blackwall_ every day, and nod and smile, and pretend… not when he could have saved Mornay, and didn’t. He’d throw himself off the ramparts.   
  
No. Mornay can’t hang. Thom Rainier was the one who turned him into a criminal. If he thinks anything of himself, of the man he’s trying to be, of the man whose name he carries… Mornay can’t hang.   
  
Rainier must.  
  
He feels it like a knife in his chest, a sharp, black certainty. The spectre of his own death. He will hang.  
  
So many of his men have gone to the gallows already. His own men, dying so he can keep on pretending he’s worth the air he breathes. It’s far too late to be taking responsibility, he knows, but better now than never. If he saves Mornay, that’s one wrong righted, at least.   
  
He won’t be helping the Inquisition take down Corypheus, and that’s a regret. He’ll admit that. This place, these people… they’ve made him into a better man. He would have liked to be there, at the end. But the Inquisitor has strong warriors at her side, and an army. His sword won’t be missed.  
  
 _She’ll never know_ , he had promised himself. And she won’t. He can’t bring himself to tell her that everything she knows about him is a lie. He’d had a chance, once, on the Storm Coast. Too long ago. He’d been a coward, and couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t tell her then. Can’t tell her now. Selfish, selfish coward.  
  
He’ll slip away in the night. Maybe it will take a day to even notice he’s gone, if she’s busy with her advisers. Then Thom Rainier will hang, and Blackwall will fade away, and the Inquisitor will think she’d loved a wretch who didn’t deserve her, which has always been true.   
  
He finds himself in the _Herald’s Rest_ , late. The candles are burning low, and the look on his face keeps others away. After Adamant, no one’s been so keen on talking, and he’s fine with that. He’d rather drown in alcohol alone. He lets his mind drift over the time he’s spent here, each moment. Playing cards, watching soldiers train in the courtyard, listening to the Inquisitor sing with every eye upon her. Dancing at Halamshiral. The immense peace of the Emerald Graves. Time after time he returns to the Storm Coast, again and again, standing in the mud where Blackwall had died. Died for _him_. Maker, he has to make that worth something.  
  
An hour, and more than a few drinks. He hears the scrape of wood on the tavern floor as someone takes a seat next to him, and he turns his head to see the Inquisitor, giving him a concerned smile. He hadn’t thought to see her here, hadn’t wanted to, but now she’s in front of him…   
  
“You’re brooding,” she says, teasing him.  
  
“I’m not!”  
  
She grins at him, and leans a little closer. “I _like_ brooding.”  
  
He can’t help but smile at her, despite it all. The light in her eyes.   
  
“I was thinking,” he says, “about when we went to that ruin. When we found the badge.” He hesitates, then leans towards her, just a little. “Do you know what you mean to me?” he asks her. “I feel like I could do _anything_ with you by my side. Anything. That’s a hard word, you know? Means a lot.”   
  
How does he do this? How does he tell her _I can do this because of you_ , without telling her what _this_ is?  
  
“ _You_ mean a lot,” she says, and her smile is soft. “Let’s get out of here.”  
  
He lets her lead him from the tavern and up the stairs to the ramparts. They walk along under the stars, her arm in his, her smile lighting up the night. He feels as if his chest might burst. For a moment he wants to throw himself on his knees in front of her and tell her everything, why he can’t stay.   
  
_No, Rainier. She deserves better than that._   
  
She does. She deserves so much better. She deserves Blackwall, and all she got was Rainier. But at least she’ll never know.  
  
They find themselves in the barn, starlight slanting through the broken roof, her kisses hot and sweet. He lifts a hand to cup her cheek, and fights the urge to weep. _Maker_ , she’s beautiful. How to say goodbye, without breaking her heart?  
  
“You need to know,” he says, “that I’m not worthy of you.” He pulls the Warden Constable’s badge from his pocket, and presses it between her hands. “If there is anything good in my life, love, it came from you. You’ve been an inspiration, and… and so much more. But there’s no future for us with me as a Warden.”  
  
“Maybe not,” she says, drawing closer, “but neither you nor I know what the future holds. With Corypheus…” She purses her lips, and shakes her head. “If I face him and die, I don’t want to wonder what we might have shared. So don’t think about the future.” She lifts a hand, and tangles her fingers in his hair. “Think about _this moment_. You and I, and the stars.”   
  
“This moment,” he echoes, lost in her eyes. “Nothing else, no one else… just us.”  
  



	58. In the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off to Val Royeaux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you enjoying the deceptively cheerful chapter summaries? I am having fun with them. 
> 
> I wrote the first draft of this chapter like 6 months ago. It has been a long time coming.

It's wrong, he knows, to do this. To take her, and then leave. But he is a weak man, and he can't bring himself to go without knowing her again, without her scent in his lungs, without the feeling of being inside her one last time.   
  
He takes his time with her, memorising every curve, every noise she makes. The taste of her lips, her skin, her sweet wetness. He brings her to climax with his mouth, caressing her as she basks in the afterglow, kissing his way up her slender form to claim her lips as he slips inside her.   
  
He curls around her afterwards, his hand splayed across her belly, his forehead pressed against her hair. When her breathing slows, he starts to count.   
  
When he reaches one thousand, he pulls away from her, slow and silent. She's impossibly pale in the moonlight, and the weight of his grief nearly unmans him. He backs away, picking up his clothes and dressing quickly, silently. His pack's ready, hidden behind a barrel of hay. He’ll take his gambeson, and his sword, but not the Warden armour she’d had made for him. It wouldn’t be right.  
  
On the floorboards, glinting in the starlight, he finds his Warden badge. _Blackwall’s_ Warden badge. It must have slipped from her hand. He brushes his thumb over the metal for a final time, smiling at the familiarity of its smooth surface. How many times had he reached down to brush his fingers across this talisman? It had steadied his nerve, strengthened his resolve. Well. He won't be needing it any more.

He slips back over to the sleeping Inquisitor, and leaves it on the hay beside her. She will find it when she wakes, and know.  
  
One last, long look at the woman he loves. Something to carry with him, when he dies – and die he will, he has no doubt. He'd give anything to press a last kiss to her temple, but he can't risk her waking. Not now.  
  
Below, on his small table in the barn, he pulls a sheet of paper towards him, and picks up a pencil.  
  
He knows how much this will hurt her, to find him gone. But if he's to do right by her, to do right by Warden Blackwall... he has to do this. He has to do this one, last thing, and perhaps, finally, be worthy of her.  
  
He tries to think of something he can write that will make her feel less utterly betrayed. But there's nothing. Only honesty.  
  
 _There's little I can say that will ease this pain. Just know that while it hurt to leave, it would've hurt more if I stayed._  
 _I am deeply sorry._  
  
He tacks the note to his carved griffon, brushing the moisture from his eyes with the back of his hand. It'll have to do.   
  
It's wrong to take his charger, but he knows the horse, and the horse knows him. He could take a less valuable animal, but he doesn't trust that it would carry him to Val Royeaux; more than that, he doesn't want to startle an unfamiliar mount now, when so much depends on silence.   
  
He offers the gelding a lump of sugar, and settles the saddle on his back.  
  
The road is cold and dark, just as it should be. The guards will see a cloaked figure, leaving in the night. They will not know it was him until daylight finds him gone. As he rides, aware of the gaze on his back, a bitter smile twists his lips. Not so very long ago he had stood there on those ramparts, with the Inquisitor, telling her no one could cross this bridge without being seen. Had told her then, too, that there could be nothing between them.   
  
Would things have been better, if she had stayed away? If she had ended things, as he'd asked? It would have been easier, certainly. But he cannot regret the time they spent together. The love they shared.   
  
_You damn bastard, Rainier,_ says Guilt. _If you'd have stayed away she wouldn't be waking up tomorrow to find her lover gone. Left her with a note and a badge you didn't earn. Not even a fucking flower. You're a miserable excuse for a man._  
  
 _It's better this way,_ he tells Guilt _. Better that I leave her now. Perhaps in death, I can finally be a man worthy of her._  
  
 _Liar. You'll never be worthy of her. You think your pathetic life can buy back all the things you've done? No. You will **never** find peace, Thom Rainier._


	59. The Scaffold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall visits Val Royeaux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to watch this scene like 5 times to get it right and  
> I just  
> man. That's some emotional labour right there. I've been making changes and adding new sentences right up till the moment of posting it. So I hope there aren't any typos.
> 
> Anyway enjoy. Next chapter's a doozy.

He arrives in Val Royeaux on the day of the execution, just before the dawn. He leaves his horse in a stables outside the city, and hopes they will be good to the poor beast, when at last they realise that he isn’t coming back.  
  
As he walks into Val Royeaux the city guards nod to him, and call him Warden. He smiles stiffly back at them, returning their nods.  
  
_They’ll get a bloody shock, soon enough._  
  
Hangings take place early, before the square gets too busy. Hangings at night tend to encourage the wrong sort of crowd. Rainier wonders whether he might be able to request it. He’d prefer to die in the dark. Under the stars.  
  
He can picture it: standing on the scaffold with a rope around his neck, looking up at an infinite sky scattered with infinite stars. And she — she might be looking at those selfsame stars, might be gazing up at the very moment…  
  
The thought almost overcomes him. He ducks inside a doorway and leans against the carved stone. It’s cold against his back, soothing, and he takes a long, deep breath. When he has recovered himself he sinks to the ground, to wait for daybreak, and the hanging.  
  
As the sky lightens, raindrops begin to fall. Not enough to drive anyone inside, just enough to make the day a grey and dismal one. Mornay’s execution will be well attended, he knows. The _Callier Massacre_ was infamous. Remains infamous.  
  
They come in threes and fours, dressed in their masks and finery despite the weather and the early hour. They mutter amongst themselves, and Rainier drops his head, hoping to shut out the noise, the pieces of horror the crowd are dragging up from the past.  
  
When the guards finally march Mornay up onto the scaffold, Rainier is shocked to see how thin the man looks. Thin, and old, and tired. What had he been doing, all these years? What had happened to him?  
  
Mornay drops to his knees, his face twisted with despair, as the guard begins to read the charges.  
  
“Cyril Mornay, for your crimes against the Empire of Orlais, for the murders of General Vincent Callier, Lady Lorette Callier, their four children, and their retainers, you are sentenced to be hanged from the neck until dead.”  
  
Each charge lands upon Rainier like lead, but it only strengthens his resolve. When the guard asks if he has anything to say in his defence, Mornay is silent. But Rainier is not.  
  
“Stop!”  
  
As he climbs the scaffold, his jaw set, he catches sight of the great grey shoulders of a Qunari in the crowd, and far too many mages’ staffs. The shock turns his mouth dry. The Inquisition. Maker, no — but it’s too late. There’s no more time. Guilt is screaming in his mind, beating at his back. He swallows, forcing  himself to ignore them as he turns to speak to the crowd.  
  
“This man is innocent of the crimes laid before him,” he says, and somehow his voice is firm. “Orders were given, and he followed them like any good soldier. He should not die for that mistake.”  
  
He turns to face the guard, and as he does so he locks eyes with Mornay, just for a moment. A flicker of recognition.  
  
“Then find me the man who gave the order,” the guard sneers from beneath his mask.  
  
He cannot find his voice. The path to death stretches out before him, and he knows, he knows, he could just turn and walk away. Against his will, he finds his gaze turning back towards the crowd, his eyes drawn to her face like a magnet. Her face. _Fucking damnit._  
  
“ _Blackwall!_ ” she cries, lurching forward, and he sees Varric take her hand to pull her back.  
  
_It’s time, old man,_ he tells himself, and takes a deep breath. _You can do this._  
  
“No,” he says. “I am not Blackwall. I never was Blackwall. Warden Blackwall is dead, and has been for years. I assumed his name to hide, _like a coward,_ from who I really am.”  
  
“ _You,_ ” Mornay breathes. “After all this time…”  
  
“It’s over,” he tells him. “I’m done hiding.” Then he raises his head, and speaks to the crowd, to the guards. To her. His final confession. “I gave the order. The crime is mine. I am Thom Rainier.”  
  
The crowd gasps. He finds her face again and holds her gaze, drinks in her look of horror and shock, and then lets the city guards take him away.

 


	60. Murderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall and his girlfriend have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steel your heart. The dawn will come. And I mean for more than just fanfiction.
> 
> Here we go.

The cells are cold. He sits, hunched over, letting Guilt claim him. And Maker, it _crushes_ him. Black and heavy, it tears his insides apart, squats on the tattered remnants of the man he tried to be, taunting him, mocking him.  
  
Of course he’d managed to fuck it up. His grand vision of nobility in standing up to confess his crimes had been shattered when he’d seen the Inquisition in the crowd. She was there. She had to stand there and hear him confess, to all that could hear, how he had lied to her. Confess that he was a traitor. A murderer. Instead of doing it before, somewhere private, where she could rage and cry and curse his name, he had tell her when she was surrounded by people.  
  
_You are a cruel man, Rainier. She deserves so much better than what you’ve done to her._  
  
Mornay had been released at once. He had not even seen the man’s reaction to his confession. Maker knows he deserves his loathing. Deserves everyone’s loathing.  
  
He hears footsteps down the damp stone of the prison, and recognises her light tread. For a brief moment he tries to deny it to himself, but he knows that footfall too well. He presses his forehead against his clenched hands, madly hoping that she will only spit at him and leave. That she will run back to Skyhold, and never think of him again.  
  
A scrape of boot against stone. He can feel her, standing there, waiting. He cannot look at her. The shame sits heavy on his shoulders, weighing him down, bending his head.  
  
“I didn’t take Blackwall’s life,” he says at last. “I traded his death. He wanted me for the Wardens. But there was an ambush. Darkspawn. He was killed.” He swallows. Old grief. “I took his name to stop the world from losing a good man. But a good man, the man _he_ was… wouldn’t have let another die in his place.”  
  
She moves closer to the bars, and in the damp prison air he can smell the scented soap she uses. He can’t look at her, Maker, he can’t look at her.  
  
“Did you really do those things?” she asks him, grief in her voice, confusion. “I don’t… I don’t want to believe that you’re a murderer.”  
  
“Believe it,” he says. She deserves to know, however painful it is to say it. “It’s all true. Take a good look at who I really am.” He takes a shaking breath. “I lied to you. That’s all there is to say about it.” He hears her gasp, or sob, and tilts his head towards her just a little, enough to see her boots beyond the bars. His face twists. “You _weren’t supposed to find me._ You were just supposed to think I was _gone_. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”  
  
“You wanted me to think you’d _left me_? That you were dead, or worse?” He can hear the tears in her voice, the anger, and the shame is crushing him. “You’d break my heart, and call it better?”  
  
He’s on his feet, then, reaching for the bars that separate them, shaking them until they clang. Her face is a mask of shock, of pain, and he shouts at her, all but screams it.  
  
“Don’t you understand?! _I gave the order_. I gave the order to kill Lord Callier, his entourage, and I _lied to my men_ about what they were doing!” He shakes the bars again, scaring her, and she backs away from him. “When it came to light, _I ran_. Those men, _my men_ , paid for my treason, while I was pretending to be a better man.”  
  
Her eyes are too blue, too bright, tears on her cheeks. He cowers under her gaze, and drops his head.  
  
“ _This_ is what I am,” he tells her, sinking to the floor, his hands still wrapped around his prison bars. “A murderer, a traitor…” _Say it, name yourself true._ “… A monster.” He squeezes his eyes shut, and drags a painful breath into his lungs. “Wouldn’t you be happier thinking I was a noble man, a Grey Warden, instead of _this_?”  
  
She still does not speak. He prays that she will go, so he does not break in front of her. He is so very close to tears.  
  
“I would have saved you the pain of knowing that all you knew about me was a lie. That you _loved_ a lie.”  
  
 He can hear her ragged breathing, but her voice is steady.  
  
“I never loved you.”  
  
He collapses in on himself as her footsteps echo on the prison floor, his hands still clinging to the bars, his forehead pressed down against the stone, her final words burning in his chest.  
  
_Good._  
  



	61. "I Tried"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisitor has some questions.

His night is long and sleepless. When she left, he had crawled into a dark corner of the cell and wept until the moon rose, and there were no tears left in him. Now he sits, head resting back against the stone, thinking of the noose and its promise of escape from this hell.  
  
Her last words haunt him. It’s better, better that she not love him. He knows this. But his mind drags him back through every moment they have shared, pulling out words and endearments, the naked affection on her face, his name gasped against his shoulder as they made love.  
  
 _That wasn’t **your** name, you blighted fool. She never cried out **your** name in passion. “Blackwall”, she said. Not “Thom Rainier”. She never loved you._  
  
It hurts, _Maker_ it hurts. It would be better, if it were true, but try as he might, he cannot make himself believe it. Cannot let go of the one good thing he had ever had.  
  
 _Selfish._  
  
She is back at dawn. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and her face is drawn; he knows she has not slept. He cannot lower his head any further. He hunches his shoulders and balls his hands into fists.  
      
“I need to know some things,” she says.  
  
He closes his eyes. Breathes in the damp, musty smell of the dungeon.  
  
He cannot deny she has a right to ask anything of him. But her presence is torture. His heart weeps blood.  
  
“Ask.”      
  
“Tell me about Blackwall.”  
  
He does, his voice low and rasping after too many hours of crying.   
  
“He found me in an inn. We were heading for Val Chevin for the Joining. Blackwall insisted on making a stop along the way, an old ruin from the previous Blight. There was an entrance there to the Deep Roads. I was to go down alone, find a darkspawn, fill a vial with its blood. When I returned, I found the Warden ambushed by more of the creatures. He took a blow meant for me.” He shakes his head. “He shouldn’t have died. It should have been _me_.”  
  
She clears her throat. “I’m not saying I _disagree,_ ” she says, “but Blackwall clearly thought you were worth saving.”  
  
He chokes out a laugh that sounds more like a sob, and wipes at his eyes.   
  
“No one should have died for me.”  
  
“Wardens die for everyone. It doesn’t matter if we deserve it. _You_ told me that.”  
  
He meets her eyes, just for a moment, and nods. “Aye, maybe. Still, the world is worse off for it.”  
  
“…But you didn’t continue on to Val Chevin.”  
  
“He… he would have wanted me to go there, I’m certain. But without Blackwall, there was no proof that I’d been recruited. That I didn’t kill him.” He shifts on the hard wooden bench. “I couldn’t go to the Wardens, but I couldn’t just walk away. So, Rainier died… and Blackwall lived.”  
  
“And who _was_ Rainier? Who were you, before all this?”  
  
He swallows, and rubs his palms together to warm them.  
  
“I was a captain in the Orlesian army. That much you know by now. I was well-regarded, respected… but it wasn’t enough.” He shakes his head, and spits a curse at himself. “One mistake. One mistake, and everything I worked for fell apart.”  
  
“‘Mistake’ is a pretty word for murder,” she says, her eyes cold. “The Duke perhaps I understand. He was a general. If he had been with his soldiers… but he had his _children_ with him, Bla—” She cuts herself off, and with a muffled oath she tries again. “Rainier. Four children. His wife. His servants, who were blameless. _Why did you do it?_ ”  
  
 “For gold.” He feels tears welling, surprised he has any left in him. “I know it sounds stupid. That’s because you don’t know the man I was… the man I truly am. My employer was a chevalier named Robert Chapuis. Ser Robert believed Grand Duke Gaspard was the rightful ruler of Orlais, and would eventually take the throne. He thought that by eliminating one of Celene’s loyal supporters, he might endear himself to the true emperor. I didn’t care whether or not the man’s plan would have worked. There was good coin offered… and I took it. By the time Ser Robert’s involvement was uncovered, I was long gone.”  
  
“And your men? How did you get them to help you? What did you tell them?”  
  
“They didn’t know who they were attacking. I told them it was an important mission. They trusted me—” He breaks off, and passes a hand across his face. “They trusted me without question. Just as your men trust you.”  
  
Her eyes are hard.  
  
“I send my men to kill darkspawn, Red Templars, Venatori. Not children. How could you _think_ that I — ”  
  
“No! No, that’s not what I meant.” He shakes his head. “I’d never pretend you were anything like me. But my men — you have to understand — it was _war_. They did it because _I gave the order_. I assumed Callier would be travelling with his soldiers, or armed guards. I’d told my men to eliminate everyone. They’d seen war. They thought they were defending their country. They _trusted me_.” He stands and paces across the cell, only to return to the low bench and dig his hands into his hair. “Those men… they’re blameless. It’s names that carry weight in this world. Bloodlines. The same crime on another battlefield would win a medal.”  
  
“It was wrong.”  
  
“I _know_ it was _wrong_.” He shoots her a sidelong glance. “That’s why I deserve to be here. But they don’t.”  
  
She is silent, for a long moment. When she shifts, as if to go, sudden fear seizes him, the knowledge that if she leaves now he’ll never see her again. He dives for the bars, and on his knees he reaches through, barely, just barely able to touch her. He grabs for the silk of her armour and clings to it like a lifeline.  
  
“Rainier…”  
  
“I tried,” he says, his shoulders shaking as the sobs overtake him. “I’m sorry, my lady. I tried to stay away from you. I tried for so long, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t. _I asked you to put an end to it._ ”   
  
“You did,” she sighs. “And I didn’t.” He glances up at her, and sees her looking down at him with a mixture of grief and pity. “You said we would regret it. You said we had no future. And you were right.”  
  
She bends, and her hands are gentle, so gentle, as she pries his fingers from her armour.  
  
She does not say goodbye.

 


	62. The Hood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (◉‿◉✿)

It _is_ night. They had been kind enough to grant him that, at least. The stars are shining down on him, and the rope is coarse around his neck. He doesn’t mind so much, in fact he welcomes it. The last sensation he will ever feel. Better it is rough and coarse, than smooth as silk. Silk would only make him think of _her_.  
  
Thank the Maker, the Inquisition have not come to watch him hang. The possibility has haunted him. Looking into her eyes as he died, or worse, trying to avoid them… but she hasn’t come. Maybe she hadn’t the strength. Or perhaps he means so little to her now it doesn’t matter if he lives or dies.  
  
The hangman reads the list of his crimes. He feels strangely light as they settle in the air around him. There is nothing more to do, nothing more to say. He steadies himself on his feet as he raises his eyes to the sky.   
  
_Forgive me._  
  
A clang shocks him into consciousness. The cell door? His dream lingers at the edges of his mind; he can almost feel the noose around his neck. It had been a sweet dream, and he longs to return to it. Death is still days away, with its promise of oblivion, and the waiting is torture. What does the bloody jailer want at this time of night? Why wake him? Grudgingly, Blackwall opens his eyes, just in time to see a dark shape shove a wad of cloth into his mouth. A sack closes over his head and he’s pulled upright, his wrists bound, and he’s shoved out the door before he’s fully aware of what’s happening.  
  
“Mmf — ”  
  
“Shut up, Rainier. Inquisition.”  
  
He does shut up, shocked into silence. Inquisition? What… what were they doing with him? A cold, icy feeling settles over him, and he swallows. He knows the Inquisition likes to deal their own justice when they can. Usually someone else offers them the opportunity. That can’t have happened here, being shoved up the stairs in the middle of the night. What were they doing, and why? Wouldn’t it be enough just to see him hang? They have to do it themselves? Nightingale was furious, no doubt. Commander Cullen… he’d seen the man, briefly. He’d come to his cell, and _looked_ at him. Hadn’t said a word, just stared at him, his face lined with disgust.  
  
And Rainier had bent his head and turned his face away. Unable to even accept silent judgement that he bloody well knew he deserved.   
  
Well. Fine. If the Inquisitor wanted his head on a pike, if that would make them all feel better… Maker, he can’t be angry with her for that. Not after what he’s done. As if he doesn’t bloody deserve it. As if they have no right to be angry.  
  
He stays silent, moving where he’s told. The Inquisition agents are silent, quick, and efficient. They get him into a coach of some kind, and then they’re moving.   
  
“No luxury for the rest of the journey,” a figure next to him murmurs, as if he’s never spoken any louder in his life. “Coach will get us noticed. Just to get us out of Val Royeaux. No one stops money.”  
  
Rainier knows that to be true.   
  
The hood is raised just a little, and the cloth pulled from his mouth. A flask knocks against his hands.  
  
“Water.”  
  
He takes it, and drinks. _Clean_ water, Maker bless them. After the sour shit in the dungeon it tastes like Andraste’s own spring.  
  
“Where are you taking me?” he asks, handing back the flask.  
  
“Skyhold.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Prisoners don’t ask questions. Stay silent, do as you’re told, we won’t need to knock you out.”  
  
When his head begins to spin, the figure adds, “Much.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legit added that first part at the last minute just to fuck with you lmao. Had you going, right? No seriously though wouldn't it be great if I didn't send the Inquisition to take him back and just left him to hang
> 
> you guys would hate me so much haha


	63. "The Waiting is Not Easy"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about missing an update last week. I was pretty sunk into my NaNoWriMo novel, which is now COMPLETED *confetti* so now I can sink all my writing thoughts into Slow Fall again.

Sometimes, they let him take his hood off. When he needs to piss, particularly. He begins to look forward to it. Getting the chance to look around, just for a bit. They’re usually on some narrow road, used enough that it’s not overgrown, but not enough that he ever sees a sign of any other traveller. They move constantly, night and day, stopping for water or to change horses at outposts that Nightingale must have set up. From what he sees of them they look like small inns: stables, beds, food, not much else; but the horses are much better than any place like that ought to have.  
  
They drug him again as they near Skyhold. He’d been wondering whether they would; how they’d sneak him in without half the fortress knowing. He never finds out. He wakes in Skyhold’s dungeons, mid-morning, with his wrists unbound for the first time in days. He massages the life back into them. Someone kind has smeared them with an elfroot poltice, and the rope burns of days of bondage are all but healed. The air is cold, and with a start he realises he’s in the _outer_ dungeon, where the cells are perilously close to falling into the abyss. Likely to keep word from spreading. Bloody unnerving, though.  
  
They’d given him a plate of food. Nothing fancy, but no prison muck, either. Good bread, fresh from the oven. An apple. He breaks off a chunk of bread and devours it, humming in appreciation, and is reaching for the apple when the voice reaches his ears.  
  
“Enjoying it?”  
  
His eye twitches, involuntarily. “Sister Nightingale.”  
  
“Just stopping by to say hello.” She smiles. “You had me completely fooled, did you know that?”  
  
He says nothing, but watches her, wary.  
  
“The Commander was not too impressed with my failure. Nor was the Inquisitor.”  
  
He winces at that. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“No, you’re not. You hate me right now, and I don’t blame you. I took something from you.”  
  
“Oh?” He can’t help the bitterness that creeps into his voice. “What could I have possibly had left to take?”  
  
“Your choice.” She gives him another smile, a sad one this time. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the way we had to bring you here. It was necessary.”  
  
She turns to go, and he jumps to his feet, grabbing the bars of his cage. “Why _did_ you bring me here? Leliana!”  
  
The door shuts behind her with a heavy _clunk_ , and he swears and steps back from the bars.  
  
“She brought you here because I asked her to.”  
  
He hadn’t seen the Inquisitor, perched on the other side of the chasm. She has been sitting on a crumble of rock in a fall of shadow, hidden, watching. She jumps down from her perch and fade-steps across the chasm, ice crystals forming in the air as she appears in front of him. Close enough that her nose wrinkles at his smell.  
  
“They didn’t bathe me, your people,” he snaps at her. “Blame them for my stink.”  
  
“Don’t you dare be angry at them,” she says, her eyes flashing. “They did their jobs. They followed orders. If you’re going to be angry at someone, Rainier, be angry at _me_. Hate _me_.”  
  
He steps back from the bars until his back meets cold stone, and slides down the wall to sit, one leg outstretched. He looks up at her, lit from behind like a Maker-blessed angel sent to judge him for his sins.  
  
“I don’t hate you, my lady,” he says. “I could never… could never hate you.”  
  
He can see the doubt on her face, the wariness; she doesn’t believe him. Doesn’t trust him any more. Andraste’s blessed arse, it breaks his heart to see her so unsure.  
  
“Are you going to kill me, then?” he asks, after a moment.  
  
She sighs, and turns to lean a shoulder against the bars, looking out through the crumbling wall at the mountain air. “Honestly, I don’t know _what_ I’m going to do with you.”  
  
He nods, slowly. It can’t be easy for her.  
  
He’ll help her out.  
  
“Execution would be right,” he says, watching her for a reaction. “Hanging better than… than beheading. There’s more shame in it. But whichever you think is just, my lady.”  
  
She does not reply. Despite it all her silence is a still and comfortable thing, as it always has been. So easy to fill up with words.  
  
“The others… Are they…”  
  
“They are hurt,” she says. “The are…” She shakes her head, and sighs. “Cassandra is livid, of course. Josephine is disappointed, which for Josephine… well, you know her. Leliana is mostly angry at herself. Cullen… He was disgusted by you, by what you did. Especially to your men. But he respects that you saved Mornay. It’s difficult for him, to reconcile your crimes with the man he thought he knew.” She shifts, and looks down at him. “It’s difficult for all of us.”  
  
He looks away.  
  
“They take it personally, you know. You were their brother-in-arms. What are they to make of you now?”  
  
“Some of them will laugh, no doubt,” he says, bitterly.  
  
“You never did give them enough credit.”  
  
He looks back up at her, surprised. She is watching him, her face impassive. Critical.  
  
“We won’t leave you here too long,” she says at last. “I know the waiting is not easy. As soon as I make my decision, you’ll see judgement.”  
  
She moves, then, to go, and he reaches forward through the cell bars and calls out to stop her.  
  
“Wait! What happened at Val Royeaux? When they…”  
  
She turns back, and gives him a steady stare. “Two days ago, Thom Rainier was hanged from the neck until dead.”  
  
The door bangs shut behind her, and he is left alone with the abyss.


	64. Judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thom Rainier learns his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some... issues with aspects of this scene in-game. I'm sure there were gamey reasons for doing it this way, but... really? Kissing the prisoner with an audience like that? No "we'll talk about it later, you're lucky I didn't leave you to rot" option?

He can't look up as he is led into the great hall. The shame crushes him. On every side are people he fought beside, people he respects. Who had respected _him_. He can feel their eyes on him, accusing, betrayed.  
  
At the end of the hall, _she_ is sitting on her throne of judgment. He has seen her sit there before, stern, always just, often merciful. He has also stood in the crowd to watch as she hefted her sword of office, impossibly large in her small hands, and took off a man's head.  
  
It is more than he can do to raise his own head to see her, impassive on her dragon throne.  
  
The guards stop, and push him forward. With a bow they withdraw, and Josephine begins to speak.  
  
“For judgment this day, Inquisitor, I must present Captain Thom Rainier, formerly known to us as Warden Blackwall. His crimes... Well. You are... aware... of his crimes.”  
  
He barks out a half-laugh, half-sob. Yes, she is.  
  
“It was no small expense to bring him here," Josephine continues, "but the decision of what to do with him is now yours.”  
  
The Inquisitor says nothing. For a long time she says nothing, until at last he raises his head to look at her.  
  
Her blue eyes are hard. She watches him for another long moment, holding his gaze, before lifting her eyes to the rest of the great hall.  
  
“Leave us,” she says.  
  
A murmur runs through the crowd, but she is resolute. “Only my advisers and my trusted companions may stay. The rest of you, out. This will not be a spectacle.”  
  
Rainier feels the change in the air as the crowds, even the guards, shuffle out of the room. Those few who have stayed hang back, unseen. Observing the traitor. Commander Cullen hovers near, his sword ready to protect the Inquisitor if the cowed prisoner, driven mad by fear, should dare to strike against her.  
  
He looks at the Commander, forehead furrowed.  
  
“You needn’t ready your sword, Commander. You know I’d never hurt her.”  
  
“I thought I knew a lot of things about you,” the Commander replies, his face stern. “I’ll make no such a mistake again.”  
  
Rainier flinches at that, but he nods. That’s fair. Why shouldn’t they distrust him? He dares to turn his head, seek out the others in the far corners of the hall. Whatever they feel, their faces are cold, serious.  
  
_They are here to hear your sentence_ , he reminds himself. It is a heavy thing. A solemn thing. There is no smirk from the Tevinter. No face holds a smile of support or reassurance. He seeks out Sera, perching high above on the landing, but even she only watches with a frown.  
  
He turns back to see the Inquisitor has been watching him. For a moment the quiet impassivity falls from her face and he sees how exhausted she is, how deeply hurt. He drops his head, a new wave of shame washing over him.  
  
The silence stretches. Will she kill him now, herself? It would be best. He hopes she will. Her own hand doing it... it would be right, somehow. That last closeness to her... He would carry her scent with him into the next world.  
  
“I knew this wasn't going to be easy,” she says at last with a sigh, “but I didn't think it would be _this_ hard.”  
  
“Another thing to regret,” he says. He remembers the man she had replace him on the scaffold, and with a bitterness that surprises him he blurts out, “You sent another man to die in my place. Haven't enough people died for me?”  
  
A muscle works in her jaw.  
  
“I wish there’d been another way,” she says, “but my options were limited.”  
  
“You could have _left me there!_ ” He starts forward, stopped by Commander Cullen’s iron grip on his shoulder. As the man pulls him back, he takes a slow breath. “I had accepted my punishment. I was ready for all this to end. Why would you stop it? What becomes of me now? You should have left me to hang.” He fights to keep the anguish from his voice.  
  
“You don't think _I_ deserve — ” She breaks off, and slams her palm down on the arm of her throne. “ _Damn it_ , Rainier! You have _lost_ the right to judge me. To judge anyone!” She closes her eyes briefly, and takes a deep, calming breath. “A traitor and a murderer was to die on the gallows at Val Royeaux,” she says. “A traitor and a murderer did _die_ on the gallows at Val Royeaux. The trade is fair.”  
  
_Traitor and murderer_. The shame forces him to his knees. He cannot speak.  
  
_Judgment is coming, Rainier_ , he reassures himself as the silence stretches. _This will not last much longer_.  
  
The Inquisitor’s voice rings out then, steady and confident. “Thom Rainier,” she says, “I will not waste the life of a good man. Warden Blackwall wanted you to join the Order. As it is _his_ name you hid behind all this time, it is right that your fate be the one he chose for you. But only when Corypheus is dead. For now, you finish what you started with us. The Inquisition needs you. When he is defeated, you will join the Grey Wardens.”  
  
He stares straight at the floor, uncomprehending. He can _stay_? To fight Corypheus by her side? No. Impossible. He shakes his head.  
  
“That... It cannot be that simple.” He dares to raise his eyes to her face. She is relaxed, resting on one elbow, a deflated look on her face.  
  
“It is _not_ simple,” she says. “This is no mercy. True Wardens have a hard life, and I hear not every conscript will survive the Joining.”  
  
“If I die, it will be no less than I deserve,” he says, fervently. “And if I live… I’ll make it count.”  
  
She leans forward. “Death is a simple end, Thom Rainier. It is much harder to live, and make up for what was done.”  
  
The words sink in, not so different from ones Warden Blackwall had said to him, a long time ago. He wonders if the Warden would be satisfied.  
  
The Inquisitor stands, and his chest seizes with a sudden terror. No, she can’t go, she can’t leave yet, not when he hasn’t said all that needs to be said!  
  
He jolts to his feet and steps towards her, only to feel Cullen’s hand on his shoulder, firm, pulling him back. His eyes flick from the Commander’s stern face to the Inquisitor’s soft one, and he swallows.  
  
“Wait,” he says, spurred on by passion and fear, “please wait, my lady, I have something to say.”  
  
She does wait, half turned to go, her eyebrows raised.  
  
He takes a breath.  
  
“If ever there was something true and good in my life, it was you. I lied about who I was, but I never lied about what I felt.” He hesitates, and drops his head. “You… said you had no love for me, but I won’t believe that you meant it. I know I am a murderer, and a traitor, and I've no right to ask it of you, but no matter what I was or what becomes of me, right now I am just a man with his heart laid bare. I leave it in your hands.”  
  
She looks at him for a long time, her face twisting in grief or anger or disgust, he can't tell. Then she turns, and walks to the door to her tower. Without a word, she is gone.  
  
The manacles are removed from his wrists, but Rainier barely notices. He is staring after her, at the closed door, so overcome with confusion and twisted with pain that he does not move until Josephine steps towards him and puts her hand on his arm.  
  
He looks down in surprise. The woman's face is guarded, but there is some sympathy there.  
  
“The Inquisitor has made her judgment,” says Josephine, not unkindly. “You may leave, Thom Rainier.”  
  
He doesn't know where to go. He does not want to go back to the barn, not now, past the gauntlet of staring faces. Mutely he turns from the room, and follows odd corridors down into the bowels of Skyhold.  
  
He finds himself in some empty storage room, lined with cobwebs. Disturbed by his entrance, dust dances in the shaft of light filtering through a single high window. He closes the door, just as grief overcomes him.  
  
He is shaking, shuddering, stumbling across the room to collapse against the far wall. The stress and fear and devastation of the past few days are suddenly too much for him, bearing down like a cave-in on his shoulders. He curls up in a ball at the foot of the wall and weeps, breath coming in sobs and gasps.  
  
He did not expect her to forgive him, or to welcome him back to her arms. But the loss of her coupled with the shock of his freedom has turned his heart upside down and he doesn't know what to think any more, cannot feel anything but confusion and grief. Grief for the loss of the fate he had chosen for himself. Grief for the look in her eyes. Grief for the wrong he has done.  
  
When his sobs have eased, the sun has already set. He is sitting in darkness, only starlight filtering through the high window. Slow breaths. Slow breaths.  
  
She did not say no. That's something. Maybe she _will_ say no, when she can stand to look at him again.  
  
_She is not going to say yes, you bloody madman_ , he says to himself, pushing damp hair back from his face. The hope will kill him, he's sure. A straight “no” would be better than living with the torture of hope. But how can he go to her, now? How can he think he _deserves_ – no. He will wait. She will turn him down when she is ready.


	65. "The Whole 'Blackwall' Thing"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visitor

Varric is the first to seek him out.  
  
Blackwall is sitting in shadows at the back of his barn, but he stands when he sees him approach, ready to take his lumps. It's only when Varric gets a little closer that he notices the dwarf is _grinning_.  
  
“I fucking _called it_ ,” he says, punching him in the arm. “The deaths, the betrayal, the seeking redemption!” He plants his hands on his hips, his grin threatening to split his head in half. “Well? What have you got to say for yourself, _Hero_?”  
  
Blackwall straightens his shoulders. “You're right,” he says. “I lied. To you, to the Inquisition. To the Inquisitor.”  
  
Varric's grin disappears. “Yeah,” he says. “You _did_ lie to her. And boy, is she _pissed_.”  
  
“And she's every right to be.” He begins to pace, shaking his head. “Why shouldn’t she be furious, after the lies I told, after what I did to her – ”  
  
“Hey,” Varric lifts his hands, “Calm down. Take it easy there, Hero – ”  
  
“ _Don't call me that_.” Blackwall balls his hands into fists, his jaw clenched. “You know that's not what I am.”  
  
Varric shrugs, spreading his palms. “Well, I know that's not what you _were_. But you've been fighting with us for a while now, Hero. And I've seen you. People are allowed to change. I've seen a kind healer turn into a terrorist, and an angry ex-slave turn into... well, a _slightly less_ angry ex-slave. Bad example.” He rubs his neck. “Well, look at Hawke. When I met her, she was a refugee. Poor and trying to work her way out of the slums with a mercenary gang. Six years later, she became the Champion of Kirkwall. Now she's helping us save the world.”  
  
Blackwall gives him a long, steady look.   
  
“She never did anything terrible. She wasn’t a murderer before she became the Champion.”  
  
Varric sighs. “You aren't making this easy, Hero.”   
  
Blackwall hesitates. Varric hadn't come to make him feel better. He'd come to gloat that he'd been right all along. But he's making the effort, even though Blackwall doesn't deserve it.   
  
He swallows, then steps forward, offering his hand. “You're a good man, Varric,” he says. “There’s no reason for anyone in the Inquisition to forgive me for what I’ve done.”  
  
The dwarf's mouth twitches upward at the corner, and he shakes his hand. “Honestly, I’ve been too hard on you. You’re nowhere _near_ as boring as I thought you were.”  
  
“Is that meant to be a compliment?” He grimaces. “You find out I’m secretly a dreadful person and you like me _better_?”  
  
Varric waves a hand. “We’re all dreadful, Hero. Every one of us, fundamentally flawed in a hundred different ways. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? With the Inquisition? Take all the risks, so the good people stay home where it’s safe. With the whole ‘Blackwall’ thing, you told a tale so convincing that even _you_ started to believe it.”  
  
Blackwall lets out a bark of laughter, shaking his head. “That’s much nicer than saying ‘you’re a dirty liar’. I’ll take it.”  
  
Varric gives him a grin. “Hey, a story-teller’s got to believe his own story, or no one will.” Then he pokes a finger toward his chest with a smirk. “But you still hurt the Inquisitor. I'm not going to let _that_ part go so easily.”  
  
Blackwall winces. “Should I expect a line of protectors at my door, ready to take me to task?”  
  
Varric shrugs. “Honestly I'm surprised Commander Cullen hasn't hit you already. He was pretty mad.” He gives Blackwall a wave, and heads back to the Great Hall. “See you 'round, Hero.”  
  
Blackwall watches him go with an unexpected sense of lightness. That... could've gone a lot worse. He can't expect everyone to be so quick to forgive, but it's good to know he won't be a _total_ outcast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Varric's on the money with his Blackwall guesses more often than he's not, and I imagine he really gets a kick out of finding out the truth.


	66. "All Those Chances"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We need to talk about our relationship."

It is more than a week before he sees her again. She does not even come to see her hart. When she and her party ride out, for the first time since he joined the Inquisition, he is not permitted to join them.  
  
He lingers around the edges of the party, pretending to help ready the horses and watching her out of the corner of his eye. Not once does she look at him.  
  
“Sorry you won't be coming with us, Hero,” Varric says, as he mounts his horse. “She isn't ready to be around you that much. I can understand it; it's close quarters on the road, and you _did_ kind of break her heart.” The dwarf's gaze is critical. He had gloated upon discovering Rainier's story, and been generous in coming to see him. But he does not forgive him for the wrongs he has done the Inquisitor.  
  
Blackwall feels this is only right. More than that; he is fiercely glad that the Inquisitor has friends who will protect her.   
  
So he nods, and tightens Varric's stirrup.   
  
“You'll tell her...” he hesitates.   
  
“I'll tell her you'll be waiting when we get back,” Varric says, taking the reins. “Everything else, you'll have to tell her yourself.”  
  
Blackwall nods, and makes himself scarce.   
  
The place seems so empty without them. He realises how much he’s come to enjoy their company. When he’d arrived at Haven, he’d been so suspicious of every question they’d asked, every statement they’d made. Somewhere along the way they’d become more than just comrades in arms. They’d become friends. Maybe not Madame Vivienne, of course — he’d never trust that woman — but most of the others. Even Dorian’s jibes would be welcome.   
  
The Inquisitor had been right, when she scolded him in their tent in the snow. The mage was teasing him. Playing a game. How bloody daft to realise he actually misses it.   
  
When they return, tired and dirty, the Inquisitor catches his eye across the courtyard, and beckons. He follows her at a respectful distance, as she leads the way to her tower.  
  
She closes the door of her quarters behind him. When they reach the top of the stairs she fidgets, her arms folded in front of her. She doesn't trust him there any more, in her inner sanctum, and he takes a breath to fight against the tightness in his chest.  
  
“I couldn't take you with us,” she says. “It was... too much to deal with.”  
  
“I understand, my lady.”  
  
She chews on the inside of her lip, one foot tapping, and fixes him with a searching gaze. “Was _any_ of what you told me true? Are you even from the Free Marches?”  
  
“Most of it was true, or at least, I tried to keep it that way. I never liked lying to you, and I didn’t want to forget what I’d said and contradict myself. I told the truth when I could.” He hesitates. “And I meant… what I said in the Great Hall. I know I lied, but I never lied about my feelings for you.”  
  
She sighs, and turns away, running her fingers through her thick hair. “You make me so _angry_ ,” she says. “All those chances you had to say something, and you _didn't_. You lied, _every time_. That letter you found on my desk that so upset you. I’d thought it was some dead soldier’s name you’d recognised, but it wasn’t, was it? It was the one about Thom Rainier, spotted in some tavern or other. And what about at Halamshiral – did that nobleman recognise you as a soldier?” She lets out a bark of laughter. “No wonder you didn't tell me what you won the Silverite Wings of Valour for. _For valour_ , you said. I spent an hour after that wondering what I'd done to piss you off.”  
  
He shuts his eyes against this onslaught, knowing every admonishment is one he has earned. Her official judgment on his misdeeds as Thom Rainier has already been passed, but he knows this isn't about what he'd done before they met. It's about what he'd done afterwards.  
  
He takes a breath. “Love — ”  
  
“ _Inquisitor._ ”  
  
He winces. “Inquisitor. Your worship.” It feels clumsy in his mouth. “I tried... I tried to tell you. I wanted to, I... I thought I had to. That I owed you that. But I...” He swallows against the sob that threatens to bubble up in his throat. “I... I couldn't.”  
  
“Why? Blackwall — _fuck_ — Rainier, _look at me_.”  
  
That name on her lips still sounds wrong, so wrong. He forces his eyes open, and sees her in front of him, a head shorter but staring up at him with eyes of steel.  
  
“Did you think I'd send you away? That I'd hate you for it? What did you think, Rainier?”  
  
“Well... don't you?”  
  
Her face twists in a grimace and she turns away from him again. Then she throws out her hands, gesturing to the room around them.  
  
“Where are you, Rainier? Did I send you away?” When he is silent, she turns back to him, dark with anger. “ _You_ left. You _left_ , without an explanation, without a goodbye, you just _left_. Left me lying naked in the straw with a note that told me nothing, and a badge you didn't earn. I had to bring you _back_ , which wasn't easy. And then I let you live, let you go _free_ , knowing half of Skyhold will say I did it just to keep you in my bed. The sweet Inquisitor, swayed by love, letting the lying murderer go free.” She says it in a bitter sing-song voice, her lip curling in disgust. “And it _kills_ me, because I don't know if they aren't _right_. Would I have let you go if you were just a good man with a sword? Would I have left you back in Val Royeaux? Am I so weak —” She twists her lips as if she has a bad taste in her mouth, and marches to her desk to pour a glass of wine from the decanter there. She takes a mouthful, then turns, swirling the wine in the glass. “You think it wouldn't be _easier_ if I hated you?”  
  
He sinks to his knees, the lump in his throat so hard he fights the urge to claw at it. But there's hope, still, because she does not hate him, and he clings to it in the face of Guilt.  
  
“The Storm Coast,” she says, abruptly. “You _were_ going to tell me, weren't you? The day you took me to those darkspawn bodies, at that ruin. The day you found your — _his_ — badge.”  
  
He nods, fighting tears and losing. “Yes. I was planning to... you deserved to know. I was going to explain why I couldn’t be with you. But I... I couldn't do it. I lost my nerve.” He shakes his head. “You would have... it was too hard,” he rasps. “I was so afraid of... of...”  
  
She sighs. He hears the clink of glass against wood as she sets down her goblet and steps forward, snaking her fingers through his hair. The caress is soothing and utterly unexpected, and he fights the instinct to wrap his arms around her and pull her close.   
  
“You know,” she says in a voice that drips with bitterness, “despite it all, I still think you're a good man, Bla— Thom. Regardless of what you once were.”  
  
“Please... call me Blackwall, your worship,” he says, his voice low, pleading. “It'll be easier that way. And... and his name gives me something to aspire to. Like a title.”  
  
“I don't care,” she says, her hand still moving through his hair. “I'll call you Blackwall around everyone else, if I must. But if you're my lover, I'm going to call you by your _real_ name. Like it or not.”  
  
He looks up at her then, in shock. “Do you mean it?” he says, reaching up to circle her wrist with his hand. “My lady...”  
  
“I don't _forgive_ you,” she says, holding his gaze. “Not entirely. Your crimes... were horrific. All those men who died for the folly of trusting a man like you… You know what you must do to atone for that. And you lied to me, Blackwall. Thom. You ran off to die and told me nothing. I _will_ forgive you. But it will take time.” She lets her eyes drift up, to linger on her hand moving through his hair. “On the road I had some space to think, about who you are and what I wanted... and I still care about you.” She reaches down to stroke his cheek, tugging gently at his beard. “I'm furious at myself for it, but I still look at you and see a good man, a man who wants to help people, a man who cares about what is right. That man... that man has _earned_ the right to a second chance.” She drops her hand to her side, breaking free from his grasp. “But it's hard. Hard to trust you again.”  
  
Blackwall drops his eyes to the stone floor.   
  
“I know it is,” he says, unable to look up at her face. “I know, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't trust you enough to tell you the truth. And I'm sorry I... I left... the way I did. I just... I couldn't go off... go off to die without...”  
  
“Hush, now,” she says as the sobs choke off his words. She sinks to her knees before him and takes him in her arms, brushing the tears from his cheeks. “Hush, now. I know.”  
  


 

 


	67. The Balcony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More talk.

When he has caught his breath, she picks up her glass, and leads him out onto the balcony that overlooks Skyhold. For once, the silence is not easy between them. She is thinking. He decides to do the same.  
  
This was a position he never expected to be in. Hoped, yes, but it had always been a mad hope, unreachable, unattainable. Now she has accepted him, accepted his love as the man he really is, knowing his past, knowing his crimes… and he doesn’t quite know what to do about that.   
  
“I…” He clears his throat. “I don’t know how to be with you as Thom Rainier.”  
  
“We’ll figure it out.” She sips at her wine, and shoots him a sidelong smile. “You said your feelings have always been true. Go with gut… and no more lies.”   
  
“No more lies.” He folds his arms against the chill of the mountain air, and shifts from foot to foot. “Is there anything else you want to know, then? About who I am? Who I was?”  
  
She considers it, glass resting against her chin. Then she smirks.  
  
“Was _any_ of what you told me about the Wardens true, or did you make it _all_ up?”  
  
He chuckles at that, emboldened by her smile. “Most of it was true. Blackwall told me some of it before he died. I didn’t want to make up anything in case you knew more about the Wardens than I thought, and called me on it.”   
  
It’s strange to talk about his fear of discovery. It has governed so much of what he has said, what he has done. Now it’s all laid bare, and speaking so openly, so honestly, feels surreal. Like a dream.  
  
“How did he find you? Blackwall, I mean. Did he know what you’d done, and track you down?”  
  
“I doubt it.” He shakes his head. “He had no reason to. I don’t know what he saw that night, except some wreck starting a bar fight. Taught some village militia a painful lesson about harassing a tavern girl. Didn’t know I had an audience.”  
  
She shoots him a sidelong look.   
  
“ _That_ sounds more like the man I know.”  
  
“You’re assuming my intentions were noble!” He laughs. “No… I’d told the wench to keep the wine coming. She couldn’t, not with those louts bothering her. Something had to be done.”  
  
She laughs too, to his surprise. “You old bastard. She gets saved from her assailants by the brave, handsome stranger, and all he wants is for her to hurry up with his wine.”  
  
“Ha! Brave and handsome? Not likely. The girl wasn’t blind.”  
  
It feels good to laugh with her. Laugh with her _about his past_ , no less. Something he never thought he’d do.  
  
“Either Blackwall thought me as noble as you did,” he says, “or he was impressed I was able to fight so well while drunk. At any rate he recruited me, and… well, you know the rest.”  
  
“Perhaps he saw a desperate man, who needed purpose.”  
  
“Aye. Mayhap he did.”  
  
A soft _ting, ting_ as she taps her fingernails against the stem of her glass.  
  
“You said you’d made an oath to the Wardens,” she muses. “Did you, or was it more… an oath to _one_ Warden?”  
  
“Heh. You’ve the right of it.” He nods. “There’s no oath you take before the Joining, or at least, I don’t think there is. Blackwall didn’t tell me the details of the Joining itself. You’re not meant to know. Warden secrets. No, I made the oath to him. After he’d died. In a sense to the Order as well, I suppose. They'd lost a good man. I had to honour that somehow.”  
  
“They mean a lot to you, the Wardens. _He_ meant a lot, I know, but it’s not just him.”  
  
“No, it’s not just him.” He sighs, and lets his eyes wander over Skyhold: the ramparts with their watchful guards, the soldiers sparring in the yard below. “When I met him, I really needed him. I was lost. My life was nothing. But the Wardens take everyone. They take all men, from the most noble to the most despicable, and make them equals. I needed to believe something like that was possible.”  
  
When she says nothing he looks at her, and the sweet fondness of her smile cuts him deep.   
  
“You needed to believe they could make you a good person. Yet you did that all on your own.”  
  
He can’t respond to that. There is a lump in his throat, emotion choking off his words. She is too good, too forgiving. He could live a hundred years and never do enough to deserve her.  
  
At last she breaks his gaze, looking out at the mountains with a sigh. She tips back her glass, and swallows the last of her wine.   
  
“I should get back to work,” she says, leading the way back into her room and setting her glass down on her desk. “I’ve reports to write up, and I have to meet with my advisers.”  
  
He takes this as his dismissal, and bows, but she takes his hand and pulls him towards her.  
  
“I brought you back here,” she tells him, hands rising to his face, “because you’re a better person than you think. Because despite it all we still consider you a part of this Inquisition. You may have been ready to die, but I wasn’t ready to let you go.” She stands up on her tip-toes, and presses her lips, briefly, against his. “But I need honesty from you, Thom. I don’t believe I ever loved a lie. Don’t make me rethink that.”  
  
He shakes his head, and takes her hand, pressing his lips to the soft skin of her knuckles.  
  
“I never will, my lady. I promise you that.”  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word "knuckles" really bothers me but I can't use the word "hand" twice in one sentence and argh. One day I'll stealth edit this chapter to fix that. 
> 
> I am revising and re-revising the next few chapters, wherein Blackwall starts to put his life back together. But I'm pretty much caught up to gameplay now so I have to get my arse out of the Deep Roads quick smart because I have a good bridging chapter I like that takes you into Varric's quest but I haven't *played* that quest yet so... yeah. Anyway I have some good notes for the deep roads. I was actually planning on skipping that DLC in-story but turns out it's fucking good so gird your loins, we be dragging the gang down where the sun don't shine.


	68. The Desert Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hissing Wastes, part 1
> 
> in which Blackwall begins to rebuild his bridges.

  
  
She allows him to accompany her party the next time they ride out. He is euphoric, until he finds out _where_ they are going.  
  
The bloody desert. And not the relatively-livable Western Approach, either. The hot, endless sands of the aptly-named Hissing Wastes.  
  
The journey there is a quiet one. Blackwall keeps his eyes lowered, and does not speak unless spoken to. He is aware of the eyes on him, the judgment, the anger. By the time they reach the desert he is beginning to wish he had not come. He knows the others have had things to say from their glances, the look in their eyes… but for whatever reason, they’ve been keeping their thoughts to themselves. For the first few days of their journey he is grateful for it. After that, the oppressive feeling, like heavy stormclouds, begins to weigh on him.   
  
She has not come to his tent at night, and he doesn’t have the nerve to approach hers. He expects their relationship will take time to recover. He needs to earn back her trust, and he knows it must be awkward for her, with the anger of her companions so raw.  
  
The heat beats down on them on the final leg taking them to the camp Scout Harding has set up on the outskirts of the desert. It is a deep relief to dismount and stretch, to shed some of his armour. He even rids himself of his gambeson, and sighs with satisfaction to feel the air on his skin.   
  
“Hairy,” Sera teases him, wrinkling her small nose. “Aren’t you hot with all that hair?”  
  
“Yes,” he says simply, “but not as hot as with that armour on.”  
  
“You’ll get stabbed,” she points out. “Stabby, stab, right in the ribs.” She makes some stabbing gestures, and grins at him. “ _And_ you’ll distract the Inquisitor.”  
  
Blackwall scoffs at that, but takes reassurance in it all the same. That Sera does not seem to mind — in fact, seems to take for granted — the Inquisitor’s enduring affection for him settles his anxiety somewhat. Perhaps the girl does not hate him as the others do. It’s a relief; out of all of the Inquisitor’s little band, Sera is the one he loves most.  
  
The Inquisitor looks hot herself, hair clinging to the sweat on her face. She is picking at her own armour as she talks to her soldiers, clearly longing to shed the silk and steel.   
  
She turns from Scout Harding with a nod, and glances over their party as they unpack their supplies from their mounts. “It’s too hot here to head out during the day,” she says. “You’ll all expire with that armour on. We’ll pass the day at camp, and head out after dark.” Nods from her companions. “Get some rest, and for gods’ sakes make sure you drink enough water.”  
  
Blackwall sinks down in the shade of a tent, deeply grateful not to be dragging himself over sand dunes in the buggering heat. Deserts are unpleasant enough on their own, let alone when one is decked out in heavy armour.   
  
Those of their number in heavier gear shed some pieces of armour or change entirely into lighter clothing until nightfall. Bull, almost always bare-chested, drops down onto the sand beside him and gives him a grin.  
  
“Shirtless is the way to go,” he says. “Glad you’ve come around.”  
  
Blackwall gives him a suspicious look. “I haven’t. It’s just until nightfall. I think you Qunari must have tougher skin than we do.”  
  
“But it feels good, doesn’t it? Shucking off that steel. Freeing. Like relieving yourself of the burden of that lie.”  
  
Blackwall feels a chill despite the desert heat. Bull’s presence on their ride to the Hissing Wastes had not held the same oppressive anger as that of Cassandra or Solas, and he hadn’t expected the accusation. Foolish of him.   
  
“Ah yes,” he says, voice heavy with bitterness, “and exchanging it for the burden of everyone hating me.” He rolls his eyes. “Lovely.”  
  
Bull gives him an injured look. “Hey, I don’t hate you! Now that you know who you are, you can get back to hitting crap.”  
  
Blackwall stares at him as the words sink in. The Iron Bull is, he knows, a more complicated person than he pretends to be. But he’s also very physical. Fights were important, important to him, important to the Inquisition. Despite everything that has happened, Bull had always been able to depend on Blackwall in a battle.   
  
He thinks back to when they had first gotten to know each other, back in their adventures around the Hinterlands. Bull had been unsure of him, had watched him, picked his story apart. The questions, and the knowledge that he was a spy, had put Blackwall on his guard, and he had been suspicious of the Qunari for a long time. Trust had been slow to build between them, and it was based on their reliance on one another in a fight. He realises that for Bull, that old trust hadn’t truly been destroyed when the truth came out. In some ways, it had only been made stronger.   
  
He gives Bull a shy smile. “How about we hit a few bottles first?” he says.  
  
“Now _that’s_ an idea!”  
  
“ _After_ we come back from tonight’s excursion.” The Inquisitor’s voice is gentle, as is her smile, tempered somewhat by the heat. “I’m going to change,” she says to the company at large. “Call me if a rift opens up, or something.”  
  
Time passes slowly. As they wait for the sun to dip below the sand dunes, their number all find spots of shade to shelter from the heat. Blackwall, leaning back against the curved support of the side of his tent, begins to doze in the sun. He is roused by a mad giggle from Sera, and creaks open one eyelid.   
  
The Inquisitor has changed into something more appropriate for the desert. Maker bless him… _appropriate_ might not be the word. She is wearing some light grey trousers and what appears to be a few strips of cloth held together with rope, her entire midriff laid bare.   
  
She notices him staring, and smiles a little shyly. “I had it made before we left. I thought it would be better, in the heat.”  
  
“You’re wearing _rope_.” He gapes at her. “And not much of it, at that.”   
  
“You don’t like it?” She looks a little disappointed.  
  
“I didn’t say _that_ ,” he says with vehemence. “It’s, uh… yes. Very…”  
  
“Now _you’re_ going to be distracted!” Sera yells at him from the other side of the camp, and cackles.  
  
“It’s an _Antaam-saar_. Good armour for mages. And for deserts.” Iron Bull chuckles and lifts a skin of water in salute. “It looks good on you, boss.”  
  
“Thank you, Bull.”  
  
Cassandra clears her throat from her perch on a crate on the other side of their little circle of tents. “It does not appear to contain much in the way of… protective covering.”   
  
The Inquisitor blinks at her in mock innocence. “But I have my stalwart warriors to protect me, Cassandra.” She gives the Seeker a warm smile, and Blackwall chuckles to see the woman’s cheeks colour slightly.  
  
He has been sad to lose the camaraderie he had with Cassandra. She has not spoken to him since the revelation of his true identity. The Inquisitor, in hushed tones, has warned him away from trying to patch things up.   
  
She moves more easily in the _antaam-saar_ , lithe and graceful, and he can’t help but smile as she flops down onto the sand next to Sera and lets the other elf tug at the fine ropes. As the rest of their number ease back into quiet conversation, he watches her, bathed in the setting sun, until a shove at his shoulder diverts his attention.   
  
“You going to be doing that the whole time we’re here? Because it’s not just the Inquisitor’s back you need to be watching.”  
  
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it out of my system.”  
  
Bull grins. “See that you do. I don’t want to end up with a Venatori sword in my back because you can’t take your eyes off your girlfriend.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually did feel obliged to get my Inquisitor a new outfit for the desert. It felt much more appropriate. It was entirely wrong, however, for the Deep Roads. I love the Wastes - they're ridiculously huge but the skybox is amazing.


	69. Sour Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All friends again uwu

Blackwall sighs as he pulls off his helmet and tosses it to the sand. It has been a long night. He had not thought this would be easy, fighting beside these men and women again, but it is still a painful thing. Varric and Bull are friendly, but the others…  
  
Solas is cold. Dorian is… well, no snarkier than usual, really, though being called a murderer is never pleasant. Cassandra… Maker, she’s angry. It radiates from her. As for Madame Vivienne, he thinks she must have excised him from her universe. She hasn’t acknowledged he is even there.  
  
He keeps his head down, and doesn’t speak much. The Inquisitor’s forgiveness is known, as is his punishment. They’ll either come around in time, or they won’t.  
  
He unbuckles the straps of his armour, and drops his chestplate down onto his bedroll. The sun will rise soon, bringing with it heat he’s not sure they’ll sleep through. At least it’ll give him time enough to get all the sand out of his armour before they head back out tomorrow and fill it back up again. Bloody deserts.  
  
There is a sound outside his tent. Bull throws aside the tent flap and flashes him a smile. Behind him, he drags a cask of sour wine, two tall mugs in his hand.  
  
“Thought we’d have that drink.”  
  
Blackwall smiles at him. “Bottles, I said. Not casks.”  
  
“You’re complaining?” He barks a laugh, and drops onto the sand.  
  
“Maker, no! Pass me that mug. I could do with a drink.”  
  
Bull takes a mouthful of the sour red and makes a satisfied comment in Qunari. “Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t get wasted after the Inquisitor passed her judgment. You looked like you weren’t keen on staying conscious.”  
  
Blackwall winces. He hadn’t realised anyone was paying that much attention. Those stoic faces… “It was a painful time.”  
  
“No kidding. Hey, kudos for not throwing yourself off the ramparts.”  
  
Blackwall snorts. “Yes, that would’ve been bloody ungrateful of me. Inquisitor saves my life only for me to throw it away again.” He shakes his head. “No. The Wardens… I’m grateful for it. It’s the right fate, the one where I can do the most good to make up for my past. She made a wise judgment there.”  
  
“Of course she did. She always does.”  
  
It does not take too long for others to drift in and join them. Sera is first, always one to sniff out camaraderie that comes with alcohol. She steals his mug, and he doesn’t mind, until she punches him in the shoulder and makes some oblique comment to his last night in the hayloft with the Inquisitor.  
  
He gives her a look of alarm. “Can you not —” he peers around his tent flap “ — can we _not speak so loudly_ about that?”  
  
“Why not?” she replies cheerfully. “You’ve done it before. We all know you’ve done it. Saw you in the Emerald Thingy. All naked and hairy.” She cackles. “Didn’t have to scare those horses, though.”  
  
“How do you even _know_ about that?”  
  
“Just do.”  
  
He passes a hand across his face, and snatches his wine back from her to tip it down his throat.  
  
He swallows hard, and shakes his head. “I _regret_ that night,” he says, firmly as he can. “I shouldn’t have left the way I did. It was wrong of me.”  
  
“But you’re back now, so it’s all good, yeah?”  
  
He gives her a long, steady look. She matches it with a smile that begins to waver at the edges.  
  
“It doesn’t bother you?” he says at last. “What I did?”  
  
“What, with the…” She makes a throat-slitting gesture.  
  
“…Yes.”  
  
“Why should it?” She takes his cup off him again, and fills it from the cask. “Proper sorry, you. The Inquisitor forgives you, and you feel bad. So that’s what counts, yeah?”  
  
“She has a point,” Bull rumbles. “You know what you did was wrong, and you’re making the effort to be a better person. Besides, you’re promised to the Wardens, and they forget all that crap. So quit it. You don’t have to parade your guilt around any more.”  
  
“Cassandra would disagree with you.”  
  
“I respect the Seeker. But she’s mad because she trusted you and you turned out to be someone else. She’s hurting. It’s not about what you did. It’s _personal_.” Bull shrugs one shoulder. “She’ll get over it.”  
  
Varric drifts in after a time, a handful of letters in one hand, two mugs in the other. He drops one down on the sand beside Sera, and goes to fill his own.  
  
“Getting drunk without me? I’m hurt!” He smirks.  
  
Bull gestures broadly with his mug. “Just telling Blackwall to get over all his angst. He skulks around like the Inquisitor’s sword of office is hanging over his head. The others will move past it, or they won’t.”  
  
Varric gives him a sly look. “Oooo, is it Criticise Blackwall Day? And none of you told me?” He settles down onto the sand. “I’ve got a list here somewhere.”  
  
“Come to defend the Inquisitor’s heart again?”  
  
Varric grins at him. “If you didn’t break it, I wouldn’t have to.”  
  
Blackwall drops his gaze to the dark red of his wine. “Aye, well. Don’t think for a minute I’m not aware of how lucky I am. She had every right to cut my bloody head off.”  
  
“She still might.” Varric chuckles, then grows serious. “I’m glad she forgave you, Hero. You make her happy — _most_ of the time, anyway,” he adds wryly.  
  
“I won’t hurt her again.”  
  
“I know you won’t. Although to be fair, I thought I knew that the first time, too.” He raises his mug, and takes a long drink. “ _Maker_ , that’s good. So, anyone got any desert stories?”  
  
“I have one,” Blackwall says with a rueful smile. He tells them the story of the berries, knowing that as unpleasant as _he_ found the experience, it will make them laugh. And it does, particularly Sera, who can’t help but add her commentary about “ _ghast-holes_ ” and similar. Another day her quips might have made him laugh, but his desert memories are not happy ones.  
  
“…Maker help us, we left the idiot bastard’s bones where he lay.” Blackwall sighs, and swallows a mouthful of red. “Took a week with the bounciest doxy in Hunter Fell to put the desert from my mind.”  
  
Sera all but snorts wine out her nose as she erupts with laughter. “Not _really!_ You and a floozy?!” She cackles. “I used to think you were _so good!_ ”  
  
The others join her laughter, and the sound draws attention. The tent flap twitches aside, letting in the light of early dawn.  
  
Dorian slips through, and looks around their little circle. “Room for one more?” he asks mildly as the laughter dies down.  
  
“I didn’t think you were the sort to drink with _murderers_ ,” Blackwall says, a sour note creeping into his voice.  
  
The Tevinter gives him a bright smile. “Well then, you don’t know me very well _at all_. I’ll have you know some of my best friends are murderers.” He settles down on the sand, brushing a few grains from the silk of his robes. Bull fills his mug, and as Dorian takes it from him he flicks his dark eyes to Blackwall’s face. “I hit a nerve with that whole ‘Murderer Grey Warden’ business,” he says. “I’m sorry for that, Blackwall. Or whatever your name is.”  
  
Blackwall gives him a hard stare. “Blackwall will do,” he says eventually. Then he shakes his head, and sighs. “You don’t have to apologise.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“I _am_ a murderer. And I escaped my past to become a Warden, like many before me.”  
  
“We’ve been trying to get him to stop that,” Bull says in a mild tone. “The whole sack-cloth-and-ashes thing.”  
  
“Rightly so.” Dorian nods, and gives Blackwall a look that he struggles to place. “I’ve been thinking. Lots of room for thinking, in a desert. All that sky…”  
  
“Get to the point.”  
  
Dorian clicks his tongue against his teeth. “I was _about_ to say that you’re too hard on yourself, Blackwall.”  
  
“Too hard on myself?” His throat is dry, and he swallows a mouthful of wine. “Are you setting up some sort of punchline?”  
  
Dorian shakes his head. “You’re not the thug I thought you were. You’re not the thug _anyone_ thought you were.”  
  
Blackwall sighs. “Here it comes.”  
  
Dorian shoots him a sharp look. “My _point_ is, you should let yourself off the hook. I know plenty of bad men, and you’re not one.”  
  
Blackwall lets this settle over him. The mage seems earnest, and with all the sniping at one another they’ve done over the months, the words are both unexpected and deeply welcome.  
  
He allows himself a smile. “I don’t know how to respond to that,” he says, honestly.  
  
“Of course not.” Dorian sips at his wine. “Let’s not go _crazy_ with defying expectations.” He smirks, but the smile dies, and his face is serious again. “I recognise that the original Blackwall saw something in you,” he says. “I respect that.”  
  
The Inquisitor had been bloody right about him all along, damn her. Blackwall clears his throat.  
  
“And you abandoned your life of privilege for the sake of principle alone.”  
  
Dorian looks away at that, a frown curving his lips. “I didn’t like that life.”  
  
“Well, it was wrong of me to lump you in with peers you barely resemble.”  
  
Dorian smiles, then, a strangely youthful expression on his fine features. “Truce?”  
  
Blackwall raises his mug. “Gladly.”  
  
“Well thank the Maker we’re all friends again,” Varric teases them.  
  
The tent flap stirs again as the Inquisitor pushes it aside and steps into the gloom.    
  
“Are we drinking?” She is still wearing her _antaam-saar_ , and the low light from Blackwall’s lamp dances on her skin as she sinks onto the sand. “Someone pass me a cup.”  
  
“You can borrow mine,” Bull tells her, emptying it down his throat and filling it again for her.  
  
She takes it from him with a smile, turning to lean back against the man’s leg. “I’m glad you’re all getting along,” she says, her voice soft. The powerful rifts here have taken it out of her, and she’s tired. “The tension was beginning to get to me.”  
  
Bull’s large hand comes to rest companionably on her dark hair. “Sorry, boss,” he says in a soft voice.  
  
“Not your fault, Bull.”  
  
“No, but I’m still sorry. It’s been a tough few weeks.”  
  
She snorts, and mutters something in Elvish. Then she sighs. “Tougher weeks to come. There’s so much to do. The Venatori are all over this place, and the rifts…” She reaches up to rub at her eyes. “If I see one more Pride demon I’m going to scream. I’m still feeling the lash that last one gave me.”  
  
“That one _is_ my fault,” Bull says, cringing. “That never should have landed on you.”  
  
“You were busy. I should have handled it.” She waves away any further protestations, and sips at her wine. “Still, it is beautiful here. The evening is so quiet, and that sky… there are so many stars.” She closes her eyes, long lashes fluttering on her cheeks. It’s not long before she’s fallen asleep, dozing quietly, and they lower their voices as they talk.


	70. Distant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which Blackwall worries far too much.

  
It had been good to clear the air, at least with some of their number. Cassandra’s expression has been even more sour this morning, and he fears she is annoyed that the others have forgiven him. The last thing he wants is to be the cause of friction between them, especially if the Seeker falls out with the Inquisitor.  
  
They had roused her as they left his tent, Bull gently shaking her awake before he stood. She had lingered a few minutes after the others, stroking Blackwall’s face with a distant sorrow in her eyes. He had dreamt that morning of a clan of massacred elves surrounded by burning red lyrium, each with a face too like hers.  
  
Ever since, he has been cursing himself once again for adding to her troubles. He accepts the others’ forgiveness, accepts the path life has taken — that there had been no other way. He knows on a bone-deep level that saving Mornay was the right thing to do, and cannot regret it; yet he still regrets the trouble he caused her.  
  
She is exhausted. She had been hiding it well, before coming here. Long nights of reading over reports, drawn-out meetings, battles and the stress of command have been wearing upon her, not to mention the pain and stress _he_ has caused. That morning, while she slept and the others sat quiet, Varric had told him something of the difficulties of his rescue. She had spent a lot of time arguing with all three of her advisers over the best way to save his worthless skin, before Nightingale had come to her with a fourth option. She had leapt upon it.  
  
“Not the sort of daring escape I’d prefer,” Varric had allowed. “Not if _I_ was writing it. Of course, the “storming the prison and killing all the guards” option makes a good story, but it’s not so much fun in real life.” He sipped his wine, and studied Blackwall in the half-light. “Honestly it was a good thing that traitor of Nightingale’s looked a lot like you. The Inquisitor had been killing herself over that decision. It’s not easy one to make, especially with a hard deadline like that. You could see a part of her counting the seconds.”  
  
He had been forbidden from further “angst”, as Bull had called it, so he had only nodded silently. In truth he was grateful for the knowledge. He wants to know in detail every way in which he has hurt the Inquisitor, so he can make it up to her. But when he asked what had happened on the day of his confession, Varric had only winced and said it involved a lot of throwing things. Blackwall did not press for more.  
  
The Hissing Wastes are _huge_ , and crossing them is made more difficult by the scarcity of water and the frankly ridiculous number of Venatori. They are all over the bloody place, lurking over every sand dune. The rifts here spit out demons as strong and stronger than any they faced in the Fade, and the Inquisitor, massaging her hand after the each rift, confesses that they are more difficult to wrench closed. Halfway through their first excursion the exhaustion had started to show on her face, and it was no surprise when she had fallen asleep in his tent.  
  
Her staying behind to rest at camp is not an option. She must be there to close the rifts, and her leadership is essential. Still, those she does not take with her try to lighten the load by searching the sands for more Venatori, and it is one of these little trips Dorian finds a note that makes him chuckle.  
  
_“Go nowhere alone. Lavellan is surprisingly capable for a Southern mage_ ,” he reads aloud with a smirk. “We must bring this back for her. It will make her laugh.”  
  
“I hope so,” Blackwall says, stretching his arms above his head until his spine cracks. He sighs. “I was just thinking how long it’s been since I’ve heard her sing.”  
  
“That’s a thought,” Dorian says slowly. “She used to be down in that tavern a lot more often.” He purses his lips. “I haven’t even heard her singing to herself around Skyhold. Not since we received word of the Lavellan clan.”  
  
“That long?” Blackwall thinks back over the weeks, feeling cold. “You’re right. _Damn_ it.” He runs a hand back through his hair. “She’s been hurting, and I’ve only been making life harder for her.”  
  
“The Inquisitor is a grown woman,” Dorian reminds him. “She knows she has friends who care for and support her. If she needs us, she knows she has only to ask, though I imagine she feels there is not much to say. The world does not stop because someone dies, Blackwall.”  
  
“You sound like her,” Blackwall complains.  
  
“If she needs us, she knows where we are,” Dorian says again, clapping him companionably on the shoulder. “Pushing won’t help matters. Now, come on. Let’s head back to camp.”  
  
She returns not long after they do, leaning on her staff more than she should.  
  
“It’s beautiful out there,” she says by way of greeting. “Was your hunting fruitful?”  
  
“We found a Venatori camp out west. Cleared it out and marked a logging stand. Dorian found a note on one of them he thinks you’d like…”  
  
She reads it with mirth dancing in her eyes. “ _Surprisingly capable!_ Can you believe that cheek? How many Dalish mages do they have up there, that they think they can judge me?” She hums her amusement, and passes the note back to Dorian. “Still, that’s reassuring. _Go nowhere alone_. At least they fear us. That can only work to our advantage.”  
  
“They fear _you_ , anyway,” Dorian drawls. “The rest of us, apparently, aren’t nearly so impressive.”  
  
They exchange news as the sky begins to lighten on the eastern horizon. The Inquisitor has found an old Warden site, and marked the place on a map so that Blackwall might visit it if he wished.  
  
“It’s an interesting spot,” she says, sipping water from her canteen. “You should take a look.”  
  
Cassandra snorts, but looks away when the Inquisitor shoots her a glare.  
  
When the sun rises over the horizon, they stir, the Inquisitor climbing to her feet and stretching out her arms. They mumble their goodnights, each making their way to their tents in the half-light of the morning.  
  
Blackwall follows the Inquisitor as she ducks inside her tent. When the flap falls closed behind them, she turns, embracing him silently, her arms fiercely strong around his chest. He cradles her like a fragile thing, one hand stroking her back.  
  
“I’m worried about you,” he murmurs into her hair.  
  
“Don’t be.”  
  
“My lady…” He sighs, and tightens his arms around her. “How can I not be? You’re tired. The stress is wearing on you. And… you haven’t been singing.”  
  
She pulls back to look up at him, forehead wrinkling in silent question.  
  
“I can’t remember the last time I heard you sing,” he says to her, lifting a hand and sliding his fingers through her hair. “You used to sing all the time. In the tavern, around Skyhold, on the road…”  
  
“Don’t worry about me, Blackwall. I’m fine.”  
  
He is going to protest, but she cuts off further concerns with a kiss, slow and sweet, and when she pulls away her face holds that look of distant sadness.  
  
“Goodnight, Thom,” she says.  
  
_Thom_. She uses the name only sparingly, when they are alone. He has begun to think of it as her way of assuring him she loves him still. A new pet name, almost, replacing the ones in Elvish she no longer seems to use.  
  
He sighs, stroking her face before he steps away.  
  
“I love you,” he says, and she smiles.  
  
“I know.”  
  
The desert dawn is beautiful, reflecting soft colours onto the pale sands, yet the Wastes seem more desolate than ever as Blackwall makes his way to his tent.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hissing Wastes are very large. But it *was* a little gratifying to find that note, I must confess.
> 
> Fic meta inc:
> 
> I'm going to pull back the curtain here and tell you that the Inquisitor hasn't sung in a while mostly because I forgot about it. But in the end that rather worked out for me, story-wise. Maybe she sings all the time in the bath and Blackwall just hasn't heard because he as been temporarily banished from the bedroom, and all of his concern is misplaced. Also, Blackwall's sort of "rehabilitation" was meant to be essentially over after the big argument in the Inquisitor's tower but it ended up being quite drawn-out, which I think is a good thing. Even when you forgive someone and all is well, it can take some time to really feel comfortable with them again. I've tried to sort of incorporate the other characters and their feelings about the whole thing as well, though not much with Madame Vivienne who I neglect terribly, partly because Blackwall isn't a big fan and would naturally avoid her. Solas and Cassandra will chime in later. I've also made Varric and Blackwall more chummy than they probably actually are, just because Varric is such a major character in the Inquisitor's story and they are quite close, so it works out better for me. Blackwall's gotta have someone to hang out with and it's ended up being Varric more often than Sera, who doesn't like being serious and is therefore difficult to get into interesting conversations, or Bull, though I'm not sure why with Bull. I think Varric's just an easier head to get into. 
> 
> I wrote this whole diatribe about the Inquisitor and Blackwall and how I hope her personality is both obvious yet not discordant enough that her actions feel weird when you think about your own Inquisitors. I mean I have more than one - more than one Lavellan, even - and they're quite different personality-wise. The Inquisitor is so open to personality and backstory, which is great from a gamer's perspective but can occasionally feel a bit weird when you're reading fic and the Inquisitor is really different. Basically, I don't use the Inquisitor's name much because it always feels jarring when I do. This one, Shae, I think was quite loud and fun with her clan but in the Inquisition she is much more quiet and private. If you're interested, here is my Blackwall-romancing Inquisitor before I darkened her eyes and added her scars: http://imgur.com/JQg9Rqq


	71. Hay and Furs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quiet time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this has taken a while for me to post. I've had a tricky couple of weeks and a health issue I had to deal with. I hope you all are well. On with the show.

They wipe out the Venatori presence in the Wastes, and Blackwall breathes a sigh of relief as they leave the desert behind them. Aside from his dislike of deserts, the Wastes have been a tiring place for the Inquisitor. He’s glad to see the back of them.  
  
His hope has been that the Inquisitor’s exhaustion would fade as they get closer to Skyhold, but it doesn’t. He still catches a look of weariness on her face in unguarded moments, and each time she says goodnight there is still that distant sorrow in her eyes.   
  
It eats away at him, like a worm in a rotting apple. Despite her reassurances he knows, deep down, that she doesn’t trust him any more. He tells himself she still cares for him, that it’s his imagination that she doesn't seem smile as much. But her distrust stands like a wall between them. He mourns for what they used to share, then curses himself for expecting things to carry on as if nothing has happened. The time they had spent together before it all… that was based on a lie. He should never wish for those times back again.   
  
She doesn't come to visit him in Skyhold as often as she once did. They still share kisses, from time to time, and fond caresses, but always they are tempered by her distance, and he feels the lack of her like a black hole in his chest. He knows it will likely be a long time before she invites him back to her bed. After leaving her the way he did... He can't even think on it. The regret is too fresh, too painful. It was wrong, he knew it was wrong.   
  
Lying to her was wrong, too. Starting a relationship with her at all, when he knew he didn’t deserve her... Why is he so good at doing things he knows are wrong? Why is he so bloody good at hurting people? Selfish, that’s what he is. He’s always been selfish, always tried to get whatever he could for himself. First glory, then money… now love.  
  
The Inquisitor has told him that he must earn back his honour. That he must live well, to make up for what he did. And he intends to.   
  
So he allows her this time. He doesn’t push her, or ask too much. He wants her to know that when she feels she can open up to him again, he will be ready. He writes her notes, some days when she's busy, and leaves them on her desk or on her pillow. Just little things, things he hopes will make her smile. He thinks of her finding them, when she finally climbs the stairs to bed; imagines her slipping them under her pillow when she sleeps. She never mentions them, but on days when he has left her a message he thinks her smile is warmer, her gaze softer. He begins pressing flowers in a book, and adds them to the notes, desperate to please her. That he dares climb the steps to her room at all he knows is a liberty. It’s one he can’t bring himself to relinquish.   
  
They no longer sit together and read. When she comes to him, she’s more like to ask him questions. Always questions, about some titbit he had told her months ago: whether this was true, whether that was a lie. He knows she is doing this for the most practical of reasons: if the Inquisition has bad information, they are all at risk. In some ways, too, he is sure the questions are to help sort out her feelings for him. He trusts her reasons, and she never speaks sharply with him about it. But each question is a reminder of the wrongs he has done her.   
  
One night, half drunk and half-dressed on his bed of hay and furs, he stares up at the stars through the gaps in the roof, and hears footsteps on the hayloft floor. He sits up, and sees her, stepping from shadow to shadow.  
  
“Don't say anything,” she says, slipping onto the furs next to him. “Just lie with me. I'm so tired.”   
  
She seems so small, lying there on the hay, curled up, facing him, her eyes already closed. The last time she was here... He sets his jaw, determined to set right his wrongs. He pulls the blankets up over them both, and settles on his side, arm around her, his breath stirring her hair. After a minute or two, she sighs, and months of tension slip away from her.  
  
“That's better,” she murmurs, raising her hand to his waist and snuggling just that little bit closer. “I've missed this... I've missed _you_.”  
  
He stays quiet, half afraid that he might scare her off. More than that; he feels like she desperately needs some time without words, without questions or concerns. Just comfort. Just warmth. _Don’t say anything_ , she’d said. He obeys it like a sacred command. If she needs him to be the shield between her and the world, just for a moment, he will accept the role without question.  
  
“You know,” she says, after a long silence, “I never understood why you were so mad at me.” Her voice is heavy with sleepiness, and he lifts his hand to gently stroke her back. “It’s been weighing on me. You were so _angry_. I know why you needed to save him, but I don't know why you were so mad when I saved you too. Did you really expect me to sit back and watch you die?”  
  
The question is like a blow to the chest. Expect her to watch him die…? No. That's part of why he hadn't told her, had left like a thief in the bloody night. And he'd been angry, yes, that another man had died on his scaffold. That she'd pulled her Inquisition strings and undone his choice. That underhanded matters had averted the course of justice. That she had sullied her hands with them.  
  
No. No, that’s not right... he’s been putting her on a pedestal, pretending she’s _better_ , pretending she’s above those things. That’s not right. He’s always known that the Inquisition is involved in some sneaky, dishonourable undertakings, and that they do them at her order. He's largely ignored that fact, because he knows they’re done for the right reasons, and it is, after all, Sister Nightingale who manages them... but also, underneath it all, because he doesn't want to taint the image of her as the blessed, Maker-sent, Herald of Andraste.  
  
And Maker’s balls, that's so _unfair_. He knows — damnit, better than anyone — that she’s a complex, complicated, _confounding_ person; that she’d do anything to keep her people safe; that she weighs each decision and counts the fall of every soldier. The spying, the subterfuge… it tears him up because all he can hear is the taunting of Guilt in the back of his mind, all he can feel is the weight of his own sins. He can’t bear to see her go down a road that cost him everything.   
  
But that’s stupid. She won’t. She’s too wise, too good; she wouldn’t end up in the hideous, haunted place he had found himself.  
  
And if she did… If he were in her place, and she was up on the gallows with a noose about her neck, could he have stood there and watched her hang? How could he, knowing how good she is, knowing how much she could do to make it right?  
  
How could he expect her to sit back and watch him die?  
  
“It... it hurt,” he says with a sigh. He presses his forehead against her hair, his eyes tight shut against the prick of tears. “I was going to die. I was _meant_ to die. I'd made my peace with that. I hoped you'd never know. Better to love a Warden who had run off, than a murderer who had hanged. And then, after... I don't know why. It just felt so wrong that another man had died in my place, when so many had done so already. I thought I was done with that. Done with the lying, the hiding. Done with innocent men dying for my crime.”  
  
“He would have died anyway,” she says, quietly. “He was a traitor. _Our_ traitor. When our people betray us, we lose so much to Corypheus. Soldiers, resources, intelligence. Time. I know you hate that, all the spying and subterfuge. I know you've had your fill of all those things. Of war. But we're in one, like it or not. And Leliana is ruthless when her people let us down.” He feels her hand slide up to his jaw, and opens his eyes to see her blue ones looking up at him. “Don't be angry with her,” she says. “She cares about her people, every one of them. That's why she gets so mad at those who turn their back on us. Sometimes we only find out their betrayal when another one of her agents dies. So the man... he would have been killed, one way or another. He was no innocent. This way, at least we got to save a life.”  
  
He _had_ been angry with Leliana. There's still a part of him that judges her, for doing what she does, for tainting the Inquisitor with her guidance and her methods. But how many lives has her spy network saved? How many innocents?  
  
“I've been unfair to her,” he says, closing his eyes again. “Unfair to _you_. But still, I... I _hate_ it, the spying, the lies. The killing. It feels like corruption.” He takes a breath, his throat tight. “It… it reminds me of who I was. What I did. All this… this underhanded stuff… I wish it weren't necessary.”  
  
She shifts in his arms, and he feels her press her lips against his collarbone.  
  
“I do too,” she says, and sighs. “I didn't mean to start talking about this. I just... I needed to know that you understood why I did it. That you knew I loved you then, even though you were angry.”  
  
He thinks back to that moment in the Great Hall, the impassive look in her eye, the sound of her tower door closing behind her.  
  
“That moment, when you called me up for judgment... I thought you'd have my head cut off right there, and I thought I'd earned it. But even then, I let myself believe you loved me. That you loved me enough to let it end, to give me death, even if it was one I didn’t choose. I thought maybe you needed to do it yourself. It…it would have been right. Fair, when I’d done wrong to you. All those lies…” He feels another pang of regret, and brushes his lips against her hair to remind himself that she knows, _she knows_ , and she is still here. “But when you gave me to the Wardens… I dared to hope. I had to tell you that I loved you. Had to ask if you’d consider… and then when you left…” His arms tighten around her. “I thought maybe I was wrong.”  
  
She presses her face into his shoulder, and her eyelashes are damp against his skin. “You weren’t wrong. I needed time.”  
  
“I know. I know.”  
  
“What about at Val Royeaux?” She sniffles. “In the prison. The way I left you… I was so —”  
  
“I didn't _deserve_ you,” he interrupts her. “When you said you'd never loved me, I didn't truly believe you, not really. But I _wanted_ to. I told myself that it was true. Because if it was, then you'd never mourn for me. You'd never think back over the time we spent together and wonder how much of it was a lie. I _needed_ to mean nothing to you. I needed to go to my death without worrying that you were hurting.” He strokes a hand along her back, and sighs. “I didn't deserve your love,” he mutters. “I still don't.”  
  
“I was angry,” she says, her voice a whisper. “I was hurt. I didn't mean it.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“And you _do_ deserve my love.”  
  
“Heh.” He bends his head to press his lips against her forehead. “I'm still not sure about that, my lady. But I'll take it, Maker knows I'll take it.”  
  
They hold each other in silence for a while, until he thinks she’s fallen asleep, but when he turns to lie on his back she shifts and curls up against him.  
  
“What do you think will happen with us?” she mumbles, her eyes still closed.   
  
He raises a hand to stroke her shoulder. “After all this… Well, I’ll be escorted to Weishaupt. At your discretion, of course. And then… I suppose it depends on you, and the Inquisition.” He turns his head to press his lips against her hair. “Whatever happens, I will always remember you.”  
  
“It was right,” she says, sounding a little indignant, if still sleepy. “I could have kept you here, all to myself, forever. But it was right. Blackwall wanted you to be a Warden. You wanted to be a Warden.”  
  
“It was right,” he agrees.   
  


 

 


	72. "A Letter to Hawke"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Varric introduces you to his friend and you're like ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *voice of Mai Valentine from Yu Gi Oh Abridged* Faaaaaaanserviiiiiiice
> 
> There's got to be a break in the angst once in a while.

  
He is sitting in Josephine’s study with a glass of whiskey. _Good_ whiskey, not the rot they serve in the _Herald’s Rest_. He’s watching the firelight play on the amber liquid, and brooding over an argument some courtiers had been having as he walked past.   
  
_Did you hear what they did with that Warden?_  
  
 _He **wasn’t** a Warden._  
  
 _Well no, that was the crime._  
  
 _No, it wasn’t. The crime was **far** worse._  
  
He hates that people are speaking of it. Hates wondering what _else_ they might be saying, about him, about the Inquisitor. Madame Vivienne has already made _her_ thoughts of his unworthiness plain…    
  
Josephine clears her throat, giving him a fixed look to ensure she has his attention.  
  
“I’m listening!” He straightens in his chair.  
  
“Good. I would hate to think that you were ignoring me.”  
  
He doesn’t think she is nearly so cross as she pretends to be. The Lady Ambassador has a glass of her own in her hand, and is leaning back against her desk, reading him a letter from some Orlesian noble.   
  
It’s her own version of his penance, delivered with something approaching wry good humour: making him hear every time there’s news of Rainier, or Mornay, or anything else related to his old life in Orlais. He doesn’t mind it, not really; the news is interesting, and it means chatting to a woman he rather likes, in a pleasant room, by a warm fire.   
  
This time it is a letter criticising the Inquisition for using Warden treaties they had no right to. His fault, of course. There have been many such letters. From the Inquisitor’s report, the Lady Ambassador and the Commander have been in stark disagreement on their approach to this issue, and he’s half convinced that Josephine’s just taking out her frustration on _him_. Which is fair, he supposes. It _is_ his fault, and she’s the one who has to deal with all the bloody nobles and their griping.  
  
A commotion from outside her door makes him look up.  
  
“ _I knew it!_ ” the Inquisitor’s voice rings through the hall, followed by a shriek of laughter. A moment later the door is slammed open, the Inquisitor herself in the doorway with a grin like a tiger, and Varric at her heels.  
  
“JOSEPHINE, I need to write a letter to Hawke!”  
  
The ambassador has straightened in surprise, her glass still in her hand. “Inquisitor! What is it? Has something happened?”  
  
“ _Varric_ has a _friend_ ,” the Inquisitor says, her grin widening even further. “She’s visiting from the Merchant’s Guild. Her name,” she pauses for effect, “is _Bianca_.”  
  
Now it is Josephine’s turn to grin.   
  
“Master Tethras! You should let me know when your friends come to visit, so I can organise a proper welcome for them.”  
  
“Oh, for the love of — Bianca’s a common name!” he says, pushing the Inquisitor forward into the room and shutting the door behind them.  
  
“He says that but it’s not, is it Josie?” “  
  
“Not terribly common among dwarfs, no.”  
  
“’Half the daughters of the Merchant’s Guild are called Bianca and the other half Helga’, they tried to tell me.” The Inquisitor shoots a look at Varric. “I don’t believe them.”  
  
Varric rolls his eyes and fixes Blackwall with a desperate expression. “Help me out, here, Hero, would you? We liars have to stick together.”  
  
Blackwall laughs at that. “You think _I_ don’t want to hear about this Bianca?”  
  
“Oh, _Maker_.” He scowls at him. “I suppose you think this is payback for all my probing questions about your _troubled past_. How was I to know you actually _had_ a troubled past?”  
  
Blackwall just grins, and raises his glass. Whether or not he hears about Bianca is all the same to him; he’s just glad to see the Inquisitor in such good spirits. She has grabbed Josephine by the ruffled sleeve and tugged her back behind the desk, making emphatic _hurry up_ motions.  
  
“Sit sit sit! Got your pen? All right.” She clears her throat. “Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, et cetera et cetera. YOU WILL NEVER GUESS — write that in capitals, Josie — YOU WILL NEVER GUESS who came to visit Varric today. I saw him talking with this girl when I came into the hall…”  
  
As the Inquisitor dictates her letter, Varric helps himself to a large glass of Josephine’s liquor and slouches into the other chair.  
  
Blackwall chuckles at him.   
  
“What’s so bad about it, anyway? Why shouldn’t the Inquisitor tell Hawke she met her?”  
  
“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Varric grumbles. “I promised I wouldn’t. Anyway, there’s nothing to tell! It’s a coincidence, that’s all.”  
  
“Then what’s the harm in it?   
  
“You don’t know Hawke. I am _never_ going to hear the end of this.”

 

 


	73. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to where things began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry updates have been sporadic lately! I've been mainlining Mass Effect in anticipation of Andromeda, and I've had some difficulties with a few chapters too. The one that comes after this I'm really unsure about. I'm going to post it anyway, but there are parts I'm not happy with. Anyway.... sorry if chapters are a bit slow for a while. I've not forgotten this fic and I will finish it.
> 
> As an aside, apparently each area in ME:A will be as large as ALL OF INQUISITION. What are they THINKING with that one? It took me like 15 hours to clear out the fucking Hinterlands! Argh!!

  
  
Bianca’s information leads them back to the Hinterlands, to a Dwarven ruin carved into the rock. They have been here before, months ago, clearing out lyrium smugglers and darkspawn. Presumably, the smugglers have returned.  
  
They make camp at the Inquisition outpost just below the lake. When the horses have been seen to, Blackwall climbs the short incline to the cabin where, so very long ago now, he had trained a handful of farmers to fight off some bandits.  
  
It seems a lifetime since then. It is, in some ways. He runs his hand over the smooth wood of the cabin door, all but untouched since he’d left it. Who had lived here, he’d never found out. He’d stumbled across the place and found it empty; abandoned, presumably, when mages and templars began fighting in its shadow. It had made a good base for a few tense weeks, while he had explored the Hinterlands, helping where he could.  
  
He pushes the door open, surprised to find the place still empty. Whoever had lived here must have died, or perhaps moved away. Maybe they are even at Skyhold, fighting for the Inquisition. He closes the door again, and strolls the length of the yard, staring down at his footprints in the dust, imagining he can see the echoes of other footprints left there months before.  
  
Here. He had been standing right here, when he first saw her. Maker, the fear he’d felt then, when she’d said Blackwall’s name. Where would life have led him, if he hadn’t seen the mark on her hand and known her for the Herald? If he hadn’t asked to join her? Where would he be, if she had turned him down?  
  
He lets his gaze roam over the lake, the mountains, turning to find her standing right where she had been, all those months ago.  
  
She gives him a shy smile. “We had the same thought,” she says.  
  
“Oh?” He smiles back, and beckons her close so he can loop his arm around her waist. “What was that?”  
  
She places her hand over his, and looks out over the vista. “That this was the place where we first met.”  
  
“It was. But I think it means more for me than it does for you.”  
  
She quirks her head to one side as she looks up at him. “Oh? What do you mean?”  
  
“Only that your world would keep on turning, if I wasn’t here,” he says. “You’d still be Inquisitor. Still happy — happier, I’ll bet. But if I’d never met you, where would I be?” He stares off across the lake, a strange melancholy drifting over him. “I was just thinking how small things can change your fate. If you hadn’t accepted my offer, hadn’t let me join you, I could be anywhere right now. Dead, maybe. Still running, still hiding, taking down a few bandits and pretending it made up for the wrongs I’ve done.”  
  
“You wouldn’t have gone to save Mornay?”  
  
“No.” He shakes his head, and turns to face her, hands braced on her shoulders. “No, love, don’t you understand? I could only do that because of you. Because _you_ made me want to be a better man. You showed me what true strength, true goodness, really looks like.”  
  
“I did nothing,” she says, her brows creasing above her nose. She huffs a sigh, and looks out over the lake. “When you asked to join the Inquisition, do you remember what you said?” She meets his eyes again, a small smile hovering on her lips. “You said ‘maybe you need a Warden’. That people would need to see a Warden in the Inquisition, to know they weren’t ignoring the Breach.” She shakes her head. “As if Wardens had meant anything to me. The Inquisition needed people, Blackwall. You didn’t need to make your case to me. All you had to say was that you wanted to help.” She laughs then, a little ruefully. “Almost everyone else just turned up. Bull is really the only one who didn’t, and that’s because of the Ben’Hassrath. Sera had me running a wild goose chase, Solas and Varric just happened to already be there, Vivienne invited me to a party… But you had this idea that you had to _earn_ it. That you had to convince me you were worth taking along.” She reaches out to take his arms in her hands, and shakes him gently. “You great idiot. You really think I would have turned you down? I’d been picking up misfits all over the place. I found you teaching men how to defend themselves, and save their farms and families. You were already trying to be a better man, can’t you see that?” She shakes her head. “There’s always been some part of you that seemed so… so _afraid_. So desperate. You hid it well, most of the time, but I saw it then, when you asked to come with me. I saw a man who needed the chance to do good, a man who needed something to fight for. You understand? I did nothing, Blackwall. I just gave you that chance. Everything you did, you did yourself. Every time you strove to do better, to _be_ better, _you_ made that decision. I’m just a woman who found herself caught up in something far greater than she is. You would have found a way to do good with or without me.”  
  
He steps forward to pull her close, his cheek against her hair.  
  
“You think too much of me,” he says with a sigh.  
  
“You think too little of yourself,” she counters, tightening her arms around him.  
  
“You really saw a desperate man?” He chuckles. “Here I thought I was hiding it so well.”  
  
“When I called you Blackwall you looked as though I’d sparked you with a lightning bolt. Back then, I assumed you’d simply spent too much time alone, wandering the world. That you felt lost, and needed a cause — something to tilt your lance at — and your name brought you back to yourself in a way that unsettled you. Though, I suppose in some ways that was not too far wrong.” She pulls back a little to look up at him, amusement dancing in her eyes. “What did _you_ see? When you first saw me?”  
  
“What did I see?” He thinks back, smiling at the memory. “I was too afraid of what you might know of me to pay too much attention. I saw a Dalish elf, another elf, a dwarf and a Qunari. I thought you were an odd bloody bunch, right enough, and you a strange one to be leading them.”  
  
“You didn’t think me pretty?” She grins at him, pinching at his side.  
  
“I was too worried, at first, to admire you. Then I saw your mark, and… Well, we’d heard of the Herald, all the Hinterlands had. Word spread fast after you tried to close the Breach that first time.” He reaches up to trace a finger along her jaw. “So then you were the Herald of Andraste. You’d walked out of the Fade. You weren’t some normal lass to be drooled over. You were untouchable.” When she starts to giggle, he tugs at a lock of her hair. “Stop that.”  
  
“I flirted with you from the start! You can’t tell me I was untouchable.”  
  
“I didn’t think you meant it! I thought it was some game for you. A way to pass the time.”  
  
“And you played along?”  
  
“Why wouldn’t I? I liked talking with you, and… Anyway, I didn’t let myself truly look at you, at first, because you were the Herald. Then before I knew it I was up nights thinking about your eyes and your smile. It snuck up on me, how beautiful you are.”  
  
She ducks her head to hide her face against his gambeson, the tips of her ears turning pink, and he laughs.  
  
“Are you blushing?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I think you are.”  
  
“I can’t help it. You made me.” She scrunches up her nose at him, then stands on tip-toe to give him a kiss.  
  
“We should head back to camp,” she says, settling back on her heels. “The others will be readying their arms.”  
  
“You go,” he says. “I want to stay here a moment longer.”  
  
She gives him a curious look as she turns back towards camp. “We can come here again, you know.” She pauses, looking out over the lake. “When all this is over, maybe we’ll bring some food and wine, and stay in that cabin a while. Just the two of us.” She shoots him a warm smile, and walks back to camp.  
  
He watches her go with a warmth in his chest, until he remembers he will be a Grey Warden then, and not hers to command.  
  
Still. Maybe one day. A man can dream.


	74. Bianca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a bit of a disappointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhh my god, I am SO sorry. I keep moving Slow Fall to the back of the list of Things To Do because I feel like I can't devote as much of my brain space to it as it deserves, and then I kept letting time pass without an update and I've been feeling guilty for like two straight weeks. I REALLY want to get back into Dragon Age. I'm still playing through the ME trilogy - haven't grabbed Andromeda yet, have been keeping spoiler-free, but I've heard that there are mixed reviews. Me, I'm pretty easily pleased, I never understood some of the reviews for the original ME series (except the complaints about the ending but at this point I've moved through the stages of grief to acceptance). 
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> So here's this chapter and basically we'll play it by ear as to when they go up. I just wanted you to know I haven't forgotten this fic. It's been on my mind very often and I miss it. 
> 
> This chapter I went back and forth on a few times. I ended up cutting a chunk out of the beginning, and there's less of Blackwall's thoughts early on than I'd like but I wanted to leave the whole ruin part in so I could work in the interaction with Solas, because poor Solas never gets any screen time. But, I like writing Varric dialogue. And poor bb with his sad face :C

  
They find Bianca just inside the cave, lurking in the shadows. The bow slung across her back marks her for a rogue, and she seems the type, teasing Varric and taking a tone with the Inquisitor not many would dare.  
  
Blackwall watches them talk, and decides Varric has told her enough for the woman to feel comfortable around the Inquisitor, but not enough to feel intimidated by her. By the expression of faint alarm on Varric’s face, he might be regretting it.  
  
Still, Bianca’s a good shot, and leads them back through Valammar with an ease that suggests she’s been here many times before. The Inquisitor, for her part, smirks the whole way, particularly when Varric and Bianca take advantage of a break between skirmishes to catch up.  
  
 The lyrium smugglers are nothing — not after what the Inquisition has been dealing with lately — but as their party descends the steps leading further into the thaig, they see a couple of Carta bowmen aiming their arrows at someone else. Some _thing_ else.  
  
“Hurlocks.” The Inquisitor sighs. “Fucking _really_? I thought we sealed that entrance.”  
  
“Perhaps we were not thorough enough when we cleared the place last time we were here. These might just be stragglers.” Solas smiles at her. “A small problem, Lethallin. Easily dealt with.”  
  
They find only a couple of Hurlocks, though one’s an Alpha and takes a little more effort to bring down. The Inquisitor examines the sealed entrance to the Deep Roads, but finds it sturdy. Stragglers they must have been. There are too many places to hide, down here; it makes Blackwall wish he had the Warden ability to tell when darkspawn were near. He doesn’t like the idea of one of the bastards catching them while their backs are turned. They open each door they come to, just to be sure, but they find no more of them.  
  
Bianca stops them in front of a door that had stymied them the last time they were here. The mechanism to open it is all but invisible, and they would not have known how to use it even if they had spotted the thing. Bianca knows the trick of it, and when she has opened the door for them she beams at the Inquisitor, who grins back.  
  
“You’ve been waiting to do that since we got here,” she accuses her.  
  
Bianca laughs. “Of course!”  
  
_But how did the smugglers manage to get past?_ The question preys on him as they draw their weapons, but he doesn’t voice it. There’s too much to concentrate on, with the Carta thugs springing towards them and the Inquisitor and Solas setting half the room on fire. In fact takes him a moment to realise there is a third mage’s staff flashing. A mage among dwarfs. That _can’t_ be a good thing.  
  
When the battle is done, he tracks the man down, and his heart sinks to see it is a Warden. He crouches to (gingerly; one never knows what one might find, with mages) search through his pockets, but he finds only a few coins. Nothing to say why he might be here, or what he was doing with the smugglers. Presumably he was working with Corypheus, but after Adamant… Blackwall sighs, and prods the corpse with his boot. Silly sod.  
  
The Inquisitor is with Bianca and Varric at the far end of the room, closing off the entrance to the Deep Roads that leads to the thaig that has spawned the red lyrium. Blackwall takes only a step towards them before Varric exclaims “ _Andraste’s arse, Bianca!_ ” and he changes his mind.  
  
He exchanges a glance with Solas. “Want to take a look around?”  
  
“I think that might be best.”  
  
They drift off a respectful distance, and busy themselves looking through bookcases and chests. Blackwall catches Solas giving him a sidelong look, and straightens.  
  
“All right,” he says with a sigh. “Out with it.”  
  
The mage lifts a book, his long fingers dallying on the cover as he reads the spine. “Out with what?”  
  
“You haven’t said much to me since…” he hesitates. “Well. You know.”  
  
“There is little to say.” Solas replaces the book on the shelf, and bends to search for another. “I assumed we were alike. We’d seen war, knew its terrible costs, but understood that it was necessary. But there was nothing necessary in what you did. You did not survive death and destruction. You sowed them. To feed your own desires.”  
  
Blackwall feels his mouth go dry.  
  
“I know that,” he says, grimacing. “I see it every time I look in a mirror. I try to make up for it.”  
  
“By wearing a different skin.” Solas straightens, and gives him a look of utter disdain. “You ran away rather than face what you’d done. You wasted your time.”  
  
It doesn’t hurt as much as it might have done, even a week ago; but it does hurt, nevertheless. He and Solas have never been close, but they’d developed some sort of camaraderie over their knowledge — shared, yet so different — of the horrors of war. They had spoken, a while ago now, about the passion that makes a good soldier. Too little and a soldier will grow weary of killing, and leave the life — or get killed before he becomes a skilled fighter. Too much passion, and they aren’t wary enough to live long… or they turn into monsters, better off dead. From the look on the mage’s angular face, it is apparent he now thinks of Blackwall as among the monsters.  
  
He clears his throat. “The Inquisitor —”  
  
“What about the Inquisitor?” she asks, appearing in the doorway with Varric in tow.  
  
Bianca is nowhere to be seen. Varric is more downcast than Blackwall can remember seeing him, and the Inquisitor’s expression is a stormcloud. Blackwall clears his throat again.  
  
“Nothing,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
She nods. “We’re done here,” she says. “I’ll expand our patrols to Valammar to make certain no one else gets any ideas.”  
  
They follow her as she stalks back through the ruin, her staff thumping against the stone with every other step. As they step out into the sunlight, the others peel away, and Blackwall doesn’t blame them, the mood she’s in. He grabs her arm, and pulls her gently back behind the waterfall.  
  
“You look angry,” he says, picking his words carefully. “Let’s linger here a while. I wouldn’t want you taking it out on our poor soldiers.”  
  
She huffs a sigh, and rolls her eyes, but her lips twist into a smile.  
  
“You’re right, of course.” She hooks her arm through his, and rests her head on his shoulder as they look through the shining waterfall. The tension eases slowly away, and her grip on his arm relaxes. “This is a beautiful spot. The waterfall, the flowers.” She nudges a nug by her feet, and with a squeal it runs off into the undergrowth. She watches it go with mirth shining in her eyes. “What were you and Solas talking about?” she asks. “You mentioned me.”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Thom.”  
  
He sighs, and scratches at his beard. “Nothing,” he says again. “Just… something we talked about once. A soldier’s life. We used to… we used to talk about war, and how unpleasant it can be. He’s an interesting person. Much wiser than I am.”  
  
“Were you talking about something we saw in the Fade?” She laughs softly. “I know he was jealous he didn’t get to come.”  
  
“No, my lady. No; he’s angry with me. For saying what I said about war, after doing what I… what I did. He thinks me a hypocrite, and he’s right. I made it seem I was a survivor, not a butcher. I spoke against the very things I was guilty of doing.”  
  
“Well, of course. Who would know better the cost, than a man who regrets his actions?”  
  
“The ones who died,” he says bleakly. He shakes his head. “I don’t like coming to you with this sort of thing,” he says. “It’s not fair, with you as Inquisitor. Every one of us follows you. You can’t take sides. And anyway, I deserve his scorn. Please, don’t ask me about it again.”  
  
“If that’s what you want,” she says, though she looks a little hurt.  
  
“It is.”  
  
“All right then.” She gives his arm a gentle squeeze. “Come on. Let’s head back.”  
  
Varric is the last to arrive back at camp, his face lined with tension. They’ve already saddled the horses for the ride to Skyhold, and he gives the Inquisitor a guilty look as he mounts up.  
  
“Sorry I’m late,” he says.  
  
“Don’t worry about it, Varric,” the Inquisitor tells him with a gentle smile. “You had thinking to do.” She clicks her tongue to her hart, and they set off back through the Hinterlands.  
  
The look on Varric’s face suggests he is going to continue to worry about it. Blackwall watches him as they follow the Inquisitor up through the mountains, the sun dipping lower in the afternoon sky and casting long shadows against the rocks. There’s a tension in his shoulders, and his head is bowed, and Blackwall begins to feel a stirring of responsibility. He decides it’s time certain favours were returned.  
  
He pulls his horse up alongside Varric’s, and waits until the dwarf looks up at him.  
  
“What do you want, Hero?” His tone is clipped.  
  
Blackwall forces a smile, and makes a guess. “It can be tough to be disappointed with someone you care about,” he says, turning his head and looking up the mountain path.  
  
Varric breathes a curse, and runs a hand back through his hair.  
  
“Oh? You ever been disappointed by someone _you_ care about?”  
  
“Mostly I’ve been the disappointment.”  
  
Varric stares at him a moment, then chuckles, turning his gaze to the Inquisitor's hart at the head of their column. “Honestly, I feel like the disappointment here too. If I hadn’t given Bianca that information, we could have avoided this whole mess. The Inquisitor does _not_ look happy. I don’t like letting her down.”  
  
Blackwall snorts. “Oh, please. She thinks the sun shines out of your arse. I’d bet a night’s drinks at the tavern she’s more annoyed at your friend for putting that look on your face than she is about Corypheus getting that red lyrium.” He jabs a finger towards the Inquisitor, riding at the head of the party. “Go on, ask her.”  
  
“I’d really rather not.” Varric fixes his gaze on the reins twisted around his hands.  
  
Blackwall watches him for a moment.  
  
“Do you mind if I ask…” he hesitates.  
  
“What, about Bianca?” He sighs. “I told her the location of the thaig where Hawke and I found the red lyrium,” he says, a little tension leaving him as he falls into the rhythm, so familiar to him, of story-telling. “I _told_ her how dangerous it was, but she still went and examined the stuff. She thinks it’s _alive_ somehow, that it has the Blight.”  
  
“The Blight?”  
  
“Yeah, that look on your face is pretty much how I felt about it. So, she asks this mage for help. Turns out he was one of the Grey Wardens who had been guarding Corypheus. And he _wasn’t_ a mage. At least, not when I met him. She’s handed Corypheus the location of all the red lyrium he could want. We’ve closed up that entrance, but it doesn’t mean much. Red lyrium’s all over the place now.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs again. “You ever wish you could just walk away and pretend none of this was happening?”  
  
“The way I heard it, you can at least blame Cassandra for getting you into this mess. I _volunteered_.” Blackwall laughs. “I’d say I was a damn fool but somehow I wound up better off in the Inquisition than I was out of it.”  
  
“That’s a point.” Varric smirks at him. “If the Inquisitor could forgive you all _your_ sins, I should be fine.”  
  
“You see? And here you were worried.”  
  
“You’re sure she won’t be mad? You know her best, of course…”  
  
“I’m not sure I do,” he says, honestly. “She doesn’t share much of herself. You must know her at least as well as I do.” He pauses, thinking back. “I think too much of her life before this was tied into her clan. When we were back at Haven, she mentioned how much she missed them. It was hard for her, coming from such a tight-knit community to a bunch of humans calling her _Herald_ and _Andraste's Chosen_. Like she’s just a symbol, not a person. I can understand why she may have wanted to keep to herself. I think she tries, but it’s not a world she knows well.”  
  
“Can’t have been easy coming to the Conclave, for that matter.” Varric shifts in his saddle. “It took Daisy a while to get used to living in a city. She used to get lost all the time, and she was _far_ too trusting. I’ve always wondered if that was just a Daisy thing, or if that’s part of living in a clan: trusting the people around you not to lie or to steal from you. Of course, the situation with _her_ clan…” He grimaces. “They didn’t trust the things she was doing. I think she scared them. She made the choice to come with us and keep exploring her magic mirror rather than stay with her people. But the Inquisitor didn’t get to make that choice. She goes from aravels in the forest to being a major political player with barely a moment to breathe. All things considered, she’s adapted pretty admirably. Must be lonely, though.”  
  
Blackwall looks ahead to the front of the column, where the Inquisitor rides on her red hart.  
  
"Yes," he says. "Still, she has us."  
  
"She has us." Varric gives him a searching look. “She really doesn’t talk about her life back before all this? I thought she might, with you.”  
  
Blackwall shakes his head. “No. I don’t like to ask, not after she lost them all. She puts so much of herself into the Inquisition, and…”  
  
“…And the time she has left, you don’t spend much of it talking.” Varric grins at him.  
  
“That’s _not_ what I was going to say.” Blackwall colours. “And it’s —”  
  
“None of my business, I know. Relax,” he says, laughing. “You know, maybe we should bring the Inquisitor out of her shell a little more. Perhaps a game of Wicked Grace when we get back to Skyhold? I’ll buy the drinks.”  
  
“I don’t know that she plays.”  
  
Varric waves a had dismissively. “You leave that to me. I’ll make sure she’s there.”

 


	75. Wicked Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cards, and a walk under the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is *not* going to be one of those stories where the author forgets about it and it never gets finished! I don't care if it takes me YEARS!

“I’ll buy the drinks” had been a lie, though Blackwall isn’t at all surprised. The drinks will be paid for out of the Inquisition’s coffers, which seems wrong when there are swords and healing items they could be spending that money on instead. It’s Josephine who notes that there is a small budget for entertaining, and Blackwall must admit that it’s better spent on them than the nobles who float about like overdressed bloody butterflies.   
  
Sera cheats too much, and has been banned from further gambling, particularly as she hasn’t a copper to her name. All the same, he’d expected to see her here, in the warm back room behind the tavern. No doubt up on a rooftop somewhere, or chatting up a barmaid. He’s a little disappointed; having arrived a bit early, he’d have liked someone to chat with.   
  
They come in ones and twos. Dorian first, with a devilish grin. Bull not long after him. Lady Josephine is the third to arrive, and she gives him a small smile as she takes her seat.   
  
“Are we expecting many? I don’t think Leiliana will be joining us, but Varric has promised me he will be able to entice our Commander along. And the Inquisitor, of course; our guest of honour.”  
  
“I wasn’t even sure the Inquisitor played Wicked Grace,” Dorian says, examining his nails.   
  
“She doesn’t, as far as I know.” Blackwall leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms across his chest. “Varric said to leave it to him.”  
  
“Well, I am glad I am not the only novice at this game,” Josephine says, and Blackwall is about to reassure her when Dorian and Bull both make sounds of derision.  
  
“Yeah, _novice_ ,” Bull rolls his eyes. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t play the pants off half of Halamshiral when you were there.”  
  
“Who has their pants off?” The Commander appears in the doorway, armour gleaming in the candlelight.   
  
“No one, _yet_ ,” Josephine says with a wicked smile. “Though the night is still young.”  
  
Solas and Vivienne do not attend, though Cassandra does, which surprises him. He would have picked the woman to be absolutely atrocious at bluffing.  
  
She catches his eye, and that of Bull, who seems to have the same question written across his face.  
  
“I wanted to play,” she says with a sigh of exasperation. “No, I’m not very good at it. But I wasn’t very good with a sword until I practiced. I welcome the opportunity to improve my game.”  
  
“Hear, hear,” the Commander says, and raises a tankard.   
  
They have the cards shuffled and dealt before Varric finally arrives, the Inquisitor at his heels.   
  
“I didn’t even know we had this room,” she says. “It’s rather lovely.” She makes a circuit of the room, examining the baubles and the wallpaper, stopping at the far end to run her hand along the mantelpiece. Her affectionate gaze wanders around faces at the table, until it returns to Varric, settling into his chair. “What did you say we were playing?”  
  
“Wicked Grace.” He grins.  
  
“You’re going to go easy on me, right?”   
  
“The game’s just to pass the time. The fun part is the drinking and the story-telling.”   
  
“It’s a drinking game? I used to be _fantastic_ at those.”  
  
Bull almost chokes on his drink. “Come on! When we had that drink after we killed our first dragon, you were almost on the floor.”  
  
“What the hell _was_ that stuff?” She makes a face as she settles into her chair. “It tasted like some something that had been brewed in a blighted well.”  
  
“ _Maraas-Lok_. What, you didn’t like it?” He chuckles. “It wasn’t easy to get, you know.”  
  
“Good.” She flashes him a grin. She picks up her cards and fans them out, looking them over with a blank expression. “Will someone tell me the rules? How am I to know if the hand is good?”  
  
“I would appreciate a reminder also,” Cassandra says.   
  
Varric fills them in on the rules, and Blackwall watches the Inquisitor as she begins to relax. She is, after all, among friends; each of them answers to her as their leader, yet in a way they’re forming some sort of family around her, patchwork though it may be. Misfits, she’d called them. A Seeker, a Tal Vashoth, a dwarven storyteller, a Tevinter mage, an ex-Templar, an Antivan diplomat, and, well, _him_. And Sera, wherever she’d got to. And a strange apostate, a spymaster, and a First Enchanter to round them off. A clan of misfits. Perhaps there’s a Dalish word for that.  
  
No replacement for the one she’s lost, but a family, all the same. Such as it is.  
  
Josephine starts the betting, and the Inquisitor bravely raises her a silver. They fall into companionable chatter. Cullen tells a story about some poor Templar recruit who managed to find himself naked in the middle of all his brethren. The Iron Bull starts talking about the first dragon they ever felled — as if they hadn’t heard it a thousand times, and participated in it besides — and it starts the Inquisitor giggling for reasons he can’t work out.   
  
“Had a bit to drink, have we?” Blackwall teases her.  
  
She shakes her head. “No. Well, yes…. I was just thinking about that dragon.” She affects a sage expression, somewhat spoilt by the mirth in her eyes. “ _Taarsi… Tarzidath_ … Oh, _fenedhis_ — Bull, what was that phrase of yours?”  
  
He lets out a bark of laughter. “ _Taarsidath-an halsaam!”_  
  
“Yes! _Taarsidath-an halsaam!_ ” She raises her tankard, and her solemn expression cracks into a wicked grin. “I really have to write that down. I’m sure one day I’ll find a perfect situation to use it and I’ll have forgotten it!”  
  
“What does it mean?” Cullen asks.  
  
“It means —”  
  
“No no no, I want to tell!” She raises her tankard again, and clears her throat. “I shall pleasure myself later while thinking of this!”  
  
Blackwall almost snorts beer out his nose.  
  
“With great respect!” Bull says as the entire table doubles over in laughter. “The respect part is important!”  
  
“Sera’s going to be sorry she missed this,” Blackwall says as the mirth dies down.   
  
“She’s under the table,” Varric tells him.  
  
“What?” He peers into the gloom, and sees a curled-up figure with a bottle of something. “Ah. Got tired of waiting, I expect.”  
  
“Come on,” Varric says, tapping his finger on the table, “who’s next to tell a story?”  
  
“Why don’t _you_ tell one?” Cassandra gives Varric’s shoulder a friendly shove. “Mister story-teller.”  
  
This must have been a poorly-placed tease, as Varric breaks out in a grin that has the Seeker blushing.   
  
The Inquisitor’s giggles have died away, and with a shy expression she says, “I have a story.”  
  
“Does it have nakedness?” Varric raises an eyebrow. “Apparently that’s our theme for the evening.”  
  
“It does, actually.”  
  
The dwarf spreads his hands. “Then by all means.”  
  
It is, Maker bless her, a story about her clan. She speaks of them with love dancing in her eyes, perhaps only the smallest trace of sadness. As she describes the humans fleeing the gobsmacked hunters, bottoms shining in the moonlight, their number collapse into laughter and the expression of delight on her face is something he will cherish.  
  
“You should tell stories more often,” he says, meeting her eyes across the table, and she ducks her head with a faint blush spreading across her cheeks.   
  
She dallies, afterwards. Blackwall steps outside, turning his face respectfully away so that their dashing commander can make it back to his post with his dignity intact, but it is a few minutes before she appears in the doorway, her eyes pensive, her long fingers twisted together.  
  
He offers her his arm like the soldier he used to be, and she takes it, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow and leaning slightly into him. For a moment he’s reminded of the last night he spent with her before Val Royeaux, walking the ramparts under the stars until they found themselves in his hayloft. It stings. Instead he takes her the other direction, up high on the wall towards the mage tower, above the gardens.  
  
“Chatting with Varric?” he asks her as they stroll. “I’m glad. You know, after that friend of his gave that information to Corypheus’s men, he was concerned you’d lost some respect for him.”  
  
Her forehead furrows. “That’s ludicrous. He’s a good friend. The first friend I made at Haven, back when everyone else was still threatening to cut my head off.” She shakes her head, and for a moment she is silent, her eyes focused on something far away. “I suppose… I really don’t have many friends left who aren’t part of the Inquisition. A few people I met at clan meetings, that’s all. Varric and Solas are technically my oldest friends.” She laughs softly. “Isn’t that awful? Mythal save me. I’ve been lucky, though, to have made so many close friends here. If everyone had been dreadful I’m not sure what I’d have done.”  
  
He chuckles at that. “All’s well between you two, then?”  
  
“Yes. He said it was nice to spend some time with me, rather than with the Inquisitor.”  
  
“You what? Had a bit too much to drink, has he?”  
  
She laughs. “No, he… He says sometimes… well, that I seem distant. Being Inquisitor… to him, and maybe to the others, the symbolism of that is so emphatic, and I end up like one of those statues of Andraste: larger than life but made of stone. He said it was nice to act like I’m normal, for a change. To spend some time with me just as a person, without all the responsibilities and duties and fears hanging from my neck.” She leans her head against his shoulder. “I don’t mean to be like that. Like a symbol or a statue. Do you see me that way, sometimes?”  
  
“Sometimes,” he admits. “Watching you close the Breach was… Well, it was momentous. Historic. I know to you it must have been a test, a great task to be undertaken, but for your people it was salvation. Just watching it was incredible.”  
  
“I was afraid,” she says, her voice small. “I was trying to be strong and determined, but I was scared. I had an army of mages and I still felt alone. None of those people there cared anything for me. They cared for the Herald. For the symbol.” She sighs. “I don’t _feel_ like a symbol. Maybe… maybe when I sit in judgment, I feel a bit like that. Representing the Inquisition, representing justice. But otherwise I just feel normal. Sometimes I feel that distance too, like a… like a chasm, separating me from people. The symbol part does that. I don’t know how to make it go away. I try to reach across, but…”  
  
“I’m not sure symbols get to decide these things, my lady. How people see us isn’t always something we can help.”  
  
“No.”   
  
She looks up at him then, with an understanding that stops him mid-stride. He stares down at her, lifting a hand to cup her cheek, and then time stops and somehow he has her pressed against the outer wall, his hand at her waist, his mouth upon her throat, and she’s gasping in a way that has him straining against his breeches.   
  
_Not here_ , says a voice at the back of his mind, but he ignores it, caught up with lust and booze and it having been _so bloody long_ since he’d had her.   
  
_**Yes,** here! _  
  
_No, not here. Come on, Rainier, you’re better than this._  
  
He is, he knows it. Even on a dark night they can’t do this here, in front of half of Skyhold. With tremendous self-control, and a sigh of reluctance, he steps back from her, his fingers lingering at her waist.   
  
“Too many eyes,” she says, with a sheepish smile. She is still breathing heavily, and he has to turn his face away and think of darkspawn, demons, anything but the way her breasts are rising and falling with each breath.  
  
“Too many eyes,” he agrees, his fists clenching.   
  
She takes his arm again and he leads her back along the wall, thinking bitter thoughts about the damn bloody gossips of Skyhold and their inquisitive bloody minds. If she’d been no one but a tavern wench, no one would have cared.   
  
But she isn’t a tavern wench. She’s the Inquisitor. She deserves better than to have half her people gossipping about her. It’s hard enough as it is. The bloody nobles don’t keep their blighted opinions to themselves. Madame Vivienne has even approached him about it, suggested he think of her future and leave her alone. It had been satisfying to shut her up, but she’s hardly the only one with reservations. Especially now his past is known; he blackens the Inquisitor’s name just being with her. No need to make matters worse.   
  
They have not gone far before a wild-eyed messenger runs over to them, and he smirks at himself, glad after all that the boy didn’t find them rutting against the ramparts. They might have scarred the boy for life.  
  
The Inquisitor reads the message, chewing her lip, while the boy hovers, awaiting her response. At last she sighs, and passes the note back with a nod.  
  
“Get them, then,” she says, and he salutes before taking to his heels.   
  
“Work?” he asks, his heart sinking.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing his arm. “Apparently I can’t put being Inquisitor aside for one night after all.”  
  
“Is it bad news?”  
  
“No, it’s… it’s a request. But I’d rather see to it now, than later.” She rises up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”  
  
He nods, and lets her go, watching as she descends the stairs and crosses the yard to the Great Hall.   
  
_The pitfalls of wooing the great and powerful,_ he reminds himself. He has always admired her dedication to duty, but _Maker_ , he misses her. It will be a lonely night in the hayloft tonight.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea of the tiny Lavellan being good at drinking games. It was amusing to watch her drink with Bull, a man 5 times her size.
> 
> I also like the idea of Cassandra getting along tremendously well with Varric while she's drunk, and Varric storing every moment away carefully in his mind for later.


End file.
